JOHNSON'S PERSONALITY AFFECTING HISTORY?
The policies of.a government are determined in the final analysis by the interests of the ruling class which it represents. Nevertheless the character of those holding the power of decision can prove to be the final determining link in.the flow of major events.
This well-known interrelationship has now become of agonizing concern to hundreds of millions of people in the world as they watch
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the actions of the man now in the White House, the man who holds the greatest power in all. history -- the power to unleash a nuclear world war.
The reports are now too numerous, and from too many sources, to be dismissed as mere propaganda from biased sources, Is the man now wearing the mantle of the presidency of the United States COm= pletely normal?
a A good example of the kind of information seeping out of Washington on this question is provided by Joseph Alsop's column of July 6. The well-known columnist was critical of Johnson politically until the president tore. up his campaign propaganda about standing for peace and adopted Goldwater's warmongering policies, This converted Alsop into an ardent admirer of Johnson, whom he at once began adulating as having the "potential" for becoming “one of America's great presidénts.!
Alsop is now worried. He states that "it will surely come as a shock that there are serious reasons to worry about Lyndon Johnson's frame of mind and approach to his heavy task."' Not that Alsop has changed his appreciation of Johnson, “Any normally astute person can see that. this extraordinary man has the potential of becoming one of the great presidents." Nevertheless there are “reasons for serious WOrTyee.
As an example, Alsop cites Johnson's reaction to a recent article by James Reston, an editorial writer of the New York Times, speculating on what the president would probably say in a projected speech.about the United Nations on its twentieth anniversary, There was nothing special about Reston's article. According to Alsop, it was the kind "that all previous presidents have met, at least with equanimity, and at worst with mild peevishness,' Not Johnson,
Reston's article provoked "one of those outbursts of Johnsonian anger that sometimes make Washington nowadays, seem like Captain Bligh's Bounty in its premutinous period. The pseudovolcanic explosion continued, according to good evidence, for six solid hours,"
What happened after "was even more remarkable." Apparently Reston had guessed right on what Johnson intended to say. But Johnson felt that this made it impossible to deliver the projected speech. It had to be completely changed. "Hence the secretary of state of the United States and one of his chief subordinates were kept at the White House until 2 o'clock one morning, reworking the president's: UN anniversary speech to change its thrust."
The speech, of course, was just as empty as. the draft forecast by Reston, if not emptier. But "that is not the main point." Alsop notes "that American political history shows no record of any previous president who refused to do what he had been thinking he probably out to do, because someone else was sharp enough to figure out he
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might do it,"
To call this a "peculiarity" is a "mild term," continues Alsop. But it is now so "notorious" in Washington that minor officials who want Johnson to do something, will pass the word that he intends to do the opposite.: ee this is published, "the result is then all but automatic."
But this is “only part of the picture.'t “Another part is the presidentts habit of constantly ordering ferocious 'security! investigations, This too is without real precedent,"
"Another, even graver part of the picture is the terrorization, once again without real precedent, of much | of the government. by these White House explosions and investigations.'
It is "sheer melancholy folly" for Johnson to act like this, in Alsop's opinion. What he ought to do is "devote himself wholeheartedly to realizing his own potential." If he would do that, "it is just about. a sure bet that he would then fulfill his promise of greatness," —
7 "It is fatal, therefore," says Alsop, "to waste half or more of every day thinking about what has been said or may be said, not to mention seeing plots in it, exploding over it, and investigating it,"
All these are grave symptoms, but Alsop leaves out some additional ones that belong to the same syndrome. One of them is the overpowering need displayed by Johnson for praise as having the "yotential" for becoming one of America's "great" presidents, if not “the greatest" as the sycophant Thomas C. Mann put it. It is a char-~ acteristic sign of megalomania,.
This "peculiarity" of Johnson's is seen in his direct generalship of the bombing of north Vietnam, Washington correspondents have described in amazement how Johnson not only follows the battle maps in detail, but actually issues the orders on the bombing missions and the targets to be selected. A real Napoleon would never do this; a person who considers himself to-be on the Napoleonic level would do it.-- given the power to put his fantasies into action.
. One more "peculiarity" missed by Alsop, is Johnson's notorious secretiveness, Just as he lives in constant and probably unbearable suspicion of "plots" directed against him and his claim to being a "great" if not “the greatest" president, so he weaves a constant series of counter plots as a defensive mechanism,
Still another item should be noted -- the streak of sadism in the man. This was one of the characteristics noted about him in the days when he ran the senate. It came to wide public attention when, in front of photographers, Johnson swung one of his dogs aloft by the
ears on the White House lawn. The explosive rages that are:now terrorizing the staff of the White House and apparently the entire government apparatus beginning with. the head of the state department are tied in with this cruelty, the abnormal satisfaction derived from inflicting pain on others,
Johnson began his own term in office by deliberately taking over the platform of Goldwater and deepening American intervention in Vietnam, This course is but the logical extension of an imperialist policy that goes back to the turn of the century. Johnson's personality, however, is-giving the pattern some rather sensational twists. The "Great Society" seems to have found its natural leader.