L.B.J.: The Softer They Fall

By Hugh Sidey

The Presidency

One of Lyndon Johnson's sidesplitting acts when he resided hereabouts was on George Parr, the "Duke" of Duyal County in Texas. Lyndon would imitate Parr calling in on his old-fashioned crank telephone. "Can you hear me, Lyndon, can you hear me?" L.B.J. the mime would quaver, holding up an imaginary two-piece phone. Then Johnson would act out his own role. "Yes, yes, go ahead, George." And sure enough, the Duke would report another election landslide for his chosen candidates, Lyndon being one. Johnson was funny imitating Parr. The thought of Parr was funny, being as how he was a thousand miles away in some sagebrush boondocks.

But since morality now hangs so heavy in this town, there were indignant headlines last week over the story from Luis Salas, a former election judge and Parr crony, on how L.B.J. made it into the Senate on stolen votes. Salas, now 76 and bent on a spiritual cleansing, claimed to recall a meeting back in 1948 near the town of Alice, Texas, as the votes were being counted. Lyndon was there pleading for 200 more votes, according to Salas, and George Parr ordered them faked and stuffed into ballot box No. 13. Johnson triumphed in that primary election over former Governor Coke Stevenson. The Salas narrative suggested strongly that the protests were smothered because the fix was put in all the way up through Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and President Harry Truman.

Revisionism is starting on Johnson as it has started on other Presidents. We have learned about the alleged loves of Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy. More stories about Richard Nixon's back-room shenanigans have emerged. Indeed, some have wondered why there were no new revelations on how L.B.J. got that TV monopoly in Austin and made millions. There were also as many whispers about him and girls as there were about

Kennedy. In life these men of immense power can often cover their sins. But in death the layers are mercilessly peeled back to reveal the truth. It is Johnson's turn.

But Lyndon Johnson's case just may be different. "Of course they stole that election," said one former aide. "That's the way they did it down there. In 1941, when Lyndon ran the first time for the Senate, he went to bed one night thinking he was 5,000 votes ahead of W. Lee ("Pappy") O'Daniel, and he woke up next morning 10,000 votes behind. He learned a thing or two between 1941 and 1948."

As for Lyndon's showing up in Alice to ask for 200 votes, all those old Johnson hands, from John Connally on down, just scoffed. The idea that a man of Johnson's skills would place himself at the scene of the crime was ridiculous. "He was more devious than that," insisted one friend with relish.

Horace Busby, who was Johnson's press secretary then, remembered that the Stevenson folks rushed out and found Judge T. Whitfield ("Tiddlywinks") Davidson at a fishing hole and got him to issue an order holding up certification of the primary winner. Lyndon's forces went on up to Justice Black, who did not like Johnson but overruled Tiddlywinks' order just the same.

All these twists and turns, the mixing of deceit and truth, the use of corrupt means for noble ends, seem to have inhibited serious assessment of Johnson so far. Around Washington last week there was a thought or two that maybe Johnson, already so suspect, would have less distance to fall than some who had left office on loftier notes. There is a group of politicians, for which Johnson may qualify, who have come out of the seamy regions of American life and used the devious rituals learned to gain power, but have also held a certain reverence for the system and its goals. Ultimately they may have produced more good than their critics.

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