A Mellower L.BJ.

The first two installments of Lyndon Johnson's televised reminiscences of his White House days were so marred by self-serving adjustments of history that neither L.B.J.'s friends nor his foes knew what wrinkles of the record to expect from Chapter 3 last week. Knowing the former President, they should not have been surprised by the absence of any. The latest CBS program, filmed last fall, showed a typical change of pace and mood.

This was a subdued and thoughtful Johnson, talking slowly and occasionally eloquently about the tragic, cosmic events surrounding John Kennedy's assassination, his own dealings with the Kennedys and his assumption of power after Dallas. He described his relations with J.F.K. as "friendly, cordial, but not personally intimate." Johnson conveyed the impression that he and Kennedy carried on a professional and political partnership, carefully adding: "We were not like brothers; we were not constant companions." He persuasively denied reports--by J.F.K.'s secretary, Mrs. Evelyn Lincoln, for one--that Kennedy planned to replace him as vice-presidential candidate in 1964. It was well known that J.F.K. considered him vital in holding the South. Johnson also rejected--with less justification--contentions by Author William Manchester and others that there was friction with Kennedy people aboard Air Force One on the return from Dallas.

Omission. Johnson's treatment of Mrs. Kennedy was duly courteous, though Jackie never bore much affection for the big, earthy Texan. He described her appearance after the assassination as "a tragic thing to observe. Here was this delicate, beautiful lady, always elegant, always fastidious. And what that morning was a beautiful, unspoiled, nicely pressed pink garment that was the last word in fashion and style and looks . . . and she still had the same garment on, but it was streaked and caked and soiled throughout with her husband's blood."

So low-keyed was Johnson's hour that it is likely to be remembered mainly for what was not said. L.B.J. exercised his contractual right with CBS, and forced the deletion of remarks he had made about the Warren Commission's findings on grounds of national security. In the excised portion, Johnson expressed lingering doubts about the commission's "single assassin" finding.

Despite the mellow tone, there were still traces of the old bitterness, the craving for sympathy. In his only show of anger, L.B.J. charged that some of the holdovers from the Kennedy days "undermined [Johnson's] Administration, and bored from within to create problems for us, and leaked information that was slanted and things of that nature." He said he did not know if there was any anti-Johnson "cult," or if it had been led by Robert Kennedy. Who were the villains? Johnson would not say. Presumably they were members of the White House staff rather than the Cabinet. Johnson probably had Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Richard Goodwin in mind. Their offense was reported disloyalty to L.B.J. and criticism on the war issue. However, another Viet Nam critic, Theodore Sorensen, won L.B.J.'s praise.

A Hero. Johnson acknowledged the difficulties of following a martyr, and a stylish one at that: "I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy's conduct of the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything that I did that someone didn't approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn't have done that."

Yet Johnson maintains that he was Kennedy's faithful successor and "executor." "After I finished writing and completing and enacting and inaugurating and putting into execution the dreams that he had, I started on my own." He added, almost as an afterthought: "I had some too."

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