Some thought it was for the birds (see cartoon below); others put it in the tradition of Phileas Fogg, who organized his life in accordance with the dictum, "The unforeseen does not exist."* The immediate entourage of the great man saw it as a stroke of genius that probably solved at one blow the most difficult problem facing the Johnson administration -- how to dump the unpopular image of the president and replace it with something attractive enough to win the elections for the Democratic party in 1968.
The latest poll gives substance to their optimism, Johnson now having a 46% popularity rating, a handsome rise from his November showing of 41% and a most gratifying change from the dismal October low of 48%.
* Jules Verne credits Mr. Fogg with having been the first tourist to make it around the world in eighty days.
The president had already been
"wired for sound" -- equipped with a mi-
crophone under his coat -- so he could
pace the boards while declaiming at his
press conferences; and he had been taught
to play the role of a "stand up comic," a
political Bob Hope whose jokes, quips,
wit and humor were sure to keep the elec-
torate in a laughing mood. But the new
image still needed a dramatic touch, a
piece of showmanship to get it on the
road.
It was at this point, on Decen-
ber 17, that Harold Holt, the prime min-
ister of Australia, was last seen alive.
From the meager evidence, the conclusion
was that he left the beach, swam out
alone into deep water, and something hap-
pened.
No one anywhere in the world, of
course, has seriously advanced the hy-
pothesis that the CIA fed the prime min-
ister of Australia to the sharks so as
to create a favorable opportunity for
FOR THE DOVES
-- From the Toronto Daily Star.
-- From the Toronto Daily Star.
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-- From the Toronto Dail
Johnson to put his new image on display; but the timing ~- just before Christmas -could not have been more auspicious for a state funeral.
It gave the president a plausible excuse to show how fast a modern Phileas Fogg can really move when he sets out to make a record. “Lyndon Johnson in orbit is the ultimate in American tourism," explained the New York Times, and the idea of his "frantic airborne dash" was "not so much for the experience of the thing as just to capture it on film and live off it for a year at home -- in this case the fateful year of 1968."
By putting in an appearance at the funeral services for Holt, Johnson could contact a dozen heads of states in one swoop. Besides the prestige this would add to the president's new image, political hay could be made by lining them up more firmly for hotter pursuit of the war. As a bonus, a side trip could be arranged to visit the boys in Vietnam at a most propitious time of year, politically speaking. Some bargain Christmas shopping could be done at the army PX's, a saving not to be sneered at. On the way home, he could drop in on the Pope to help His Holiness offer a peace message to the world. And, with split-second timing in the example set by the illustrious Mr. Fogg, Johnson could still wind up posing in front of the ten-foot Christmas tree in the White House with cameras and tape machines to record the tranquil scene of his wishing the people of the United States the season's greetings on Christmas Eve 1967.
No sooner thought of than done. It was explained to the press that Johnson felt the loss of Harold Holt keenly. They were buddies in the war in Vietnam, Johnson with his 500,000 GI's and Holt with his 2,000 Aussies. Johnson held Holt in such affection that "They were in frequent touch by telephone," according to the New York Times, “bolstering each other's morale and developing a genuine friendship as well as a diplomatic and military partnership."
The president took off in his No. 2 plane and landed in Canberra Decenber 21. There, among such mourners as Chung Hee Park, the president of South Korea; Premier C.K.Yen, the envoy of Chiang Kai-shek; Shojiro Kawashima, vice president of the ruling party in Japan; and Ferdinand E. Marcos, president of the Philippines; Johnson singled out Nguyen Van Thieu, the puppet president of South Vietnam, for special attention.
The two sat down to reason together and iron out the differences in their stories (there had been rumors of a clash over perspectives in Vietnam). They settled everything in a few minutes, and is- -14-
sued a joint statement, which Johnson may have brought along in advance, declaring their mutual determination to carry on with the war in Vietnam to the bitter end.
The funeral the following day in Melbourne was a brilliant success, getting top billing in all the communications media internationally. Johnson fit in remarkably well with the other mourners, as could be seen from the photographs. He sat with a bereaved countenance behind Prince Charles of England, with the more attractive, left side of his profile facing the cameras.
The services over, no more time was lost in Australia. At Korat, Thailand, Johnson delivered a midnight pep talk to American combat fighters as their colleagues took off from a nearby strip for a bombing foray in North Vietnam. He spoke strongly for keeping up the bombing of North Vietnam and told the fliers: "Let no man in any land misread the spirit of our land. The spirit of America is not to be read on placards and posters."
With that thrust against the antiwar demonstrators in the United States, Jobnson took off for Camranh Bay, the safest U.S. air base in Vietnam. There he stopped for an entire hour.
Thirty-three C-130 transports had brought in 2,450 troops to be lined up and reviewed by their commander in chief. He pinned medals on some of them as the cameras ground away, pressed a few hands, and offered a pep talk in which he said that the North Vietnamese fighters were not yet beaten but knew they had "met their master in the field.”
"We're not going to yield," he said. "And we're not going to shimmy."
Upon leaving, he shook hands with generals, civilian officials and soldiers crowding the ramp. Then, according to the account, he made a fist with his right hand and told Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker: "Give it to then."
At Karachi, where an hour was spent refueling, Johnson whiled away the time with Mohammed Ayub Khan, the president of Pakistan, but this rated only a paragraph or so in most dispatches. The next major target was Rome and a Christmas peace message to be issued by Johnson from the Vatican with the Pontiff at his side so as to give it the Papal seal of approval.
But trouble had developed in Rome over diplomatic protocol, hierarchical rigmarole, wounded feelings, petty vanities and other obscure and frustrating niceties of the complex Italian political scene. It was not until three hours before the landing that the "ultimate in American tourism" knew he would be re-
ceived by the Pope. Up to then, the press claims, he had been prepared to accept the alternative of landing in Madrid and seeing Generalissimo Franco, another leading Catholic.
But it hardly seems in character for Johnson to have had any doubts about the Pope. He felt in his bones, it seems certain, that the impending visitation would prove irresistible to the good vicar. After all, how long has it been since any Pope could boast of having shaken hands with the Almighty himself, and in the flesh, even if in the shape of a Protestant?
What actually happened in Rome remains something of a mystery despite the handouts of the White House press service picturing a smashing success for Johnson and a remarkable meeting of minds between the world's holiest Catholic and the world's most omnipotent Protestant. Tantalizing bits of the truth can, however, be pieced together from various sources.
On December 23, sometime before Johnson's plane landed at 6:55 p.m., the well-informed correspondent of the Paris daily. Le Monde, Jacques Nobécourt, wrote from Rome that neither the Italian authorities nor the Holy See were notably elated at having been selected as hosts for a presidential whistle-stop.
Besides the uneasiness of the hosts, the guest was in a bristling mood when he arrived. William McGaffin of the CDN news service wrote: "The President was furious while he waited 10 minutes at Ciampino Airport for the helicopter to pick him up."
The ten minutes were lost in completing the reassembly of his helicopter, which had been disassembled in the U.S., packed on a military freight plane, and carted across the Atlantic for his use in Rome. The president's bubbletop, armorplated limousine had also been airfreighted to Rome for use in moving him from his helicopter to any church or government building.
Six thousand police had been mobilized to protect the route to the presidential palace in Rome where the heads of the Italian government always meet visiting dignitaries. But that plan did not correspond with Johnson's idea of how to outfox any peace demonstrators that might show up despite all the secrecy. As William McGaffin put it, the plan was that "he would be denied exposure to crowds, much as he loves them, to avoid the danger and embarrassment of an anti-American demonstration."
The heads of the Italian government were told that Johnson would take off in his helicopter and meet them at -15-
Castelporziano, the 5,000-acre country estate where President Sarragat relaxes from the cares of office in the summer.
The hosts had no choice but to meet the wishes of the "ultimate in American tourism." They dutifully showed up and Johnson granted them an audience of twenty minutes.
He then took off, guarded by armored helicopters that had been flown in from the Sixth Fleet. It was 8:20; and the night was pitch-black.
Jacques Nobécourt reports in the December 26 Le Monde that the armored helicopters circled the Vatican City for a quarter of an hour looking for a tennis court where they were supposed to land. It was hard to find in the dark. They swooped over the Papal gardens and zoomed through St. Peter's Square. One of them attempted a landing and broke all the cables set up to broadcast the Christmas mass. With that success, the others tried landing -- the first attempt of its kind in the history of the Eternal City, "in complete darkness and without knowing the place." The pilots, with the whole knowhow tradition of the American military machine behind them, did a superb job of putting the president down safely, knocking over only a small antenna of the Vatican broadcasting station.
The president was then whisked into his armor-plated, bubbletop limousine; and in a couple of minutes he was pumping the hand of the eminent figure who had been persuaded on the advisability of meeting him on this joyous occasion.
Johnson talked with the Pope privately for an hour and a quarter. Upon emerging from the library where the conversation was staged, he took out a paper from his pocket and read a peace statement about the war in Vietnam. The peace statement did not refer in the slightest way to the sorrow and concern which the Pope has been expressing about the continued bombing of North Vietnam, but it did take into account the admonitions of the Pope to the North Vietnamese.
The declaration had evidently been prepared well in advance of Johnson's conversation with the Pope. It, of course, got front-page attention throughout the world, as the author of the message had obviously calculated it would.
Human interest was added to the meeting by the announcement that Johnson had brought a gift to the Pope from his daughter Luci, who had been converted to Catholicism. The gift, in perfect harmony with the spirit of the evening, was a bronze bust of her father.
The party of tourists took off from the Vatican, and at 10:38 the president's helicopter landed again at the airport. Johnson took time out to choose some trinkets from an assortment offered him by a jeweler from the via Condotti. At 11 p.m. the flight was resumed to Washington. All of the president's business in Rome had been completed in four hours and five minutes, according to the schedule jotted down by the correspondent of Le Monde. It was a record few tourists can show evidence of having matched.
What went on between the Pope and the president in the hour and fifteen minutes they spent together? This was a closely guarded secret until the mystery was cracked by Newsweek. According to this source (January 8 issue), "the meeting between the President and the Pope had, in fact, been less than completely harmonious."
The meeting was sought by the White House, said Newsweek, because Johnson was concerned that the Pope might make some kind of peace move that would embarrass the U.S.
"The meeting itself turned out to be a correct but impersonal encounter. According to diplomatic insiders, the President in folksy Texas fashion sought to bridge the gap by telling the Pope how pleased he was about his daughter Luci's conversion to Catholicism. But the Pope, who had a ten-page memo on the desk in front of him, immediately launched into a discussion on Vietnan.
"Why, His Holiness wanted to know, couldn't the U.S. prolong the 24-hour Christmas truce and indefinitely suspend the bombing? The President sought to explain that so long as U.S. troops were fighting in Vietnam he was duty-bound to give them all the possible military support at his disposal. Visibly upset by this reply, the Pope sharply demanded: 'Perché ([Why]?'"
Newsweek said that after the meeting, a knowledgeable official in Rome reported: “Everyone left unhappy. The encounter ended as a frigid meeting between two diplomats."
In Washington, “another source in a position to know admitted: ‘I would be less than honest with you if I said there was a complete meeting of minds.'"
The exposure brought a howl from the White House. At his news conference January 2, Johnson denounced Newsweek, saying, "It is just made out of whole -16-
cloth. It just didn't happen. The people who participated in the conference fron our side were startled and shocked at their information. We told them it was just completely untrue. So that is our version. You can take Newsweek's or ours, whichever you want."
It boils down, obviously, to measuring whose credibility gap is gaping the widest, Newsweek's or the president's. There is little doubt, naturally, which version most people will take.
Johnson's own dissatisfaction with the way things went in Rome was indicated by his announcement nine days after returning home that Ambassador Frederick Reinhardt, the career diplomat in charge of American affairs in Italy, is to be replaced by Gordon Ackley, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, described by Johnson as "one of my most trusted and closest friends and advisers."
Johnson must be credited with a model demonstration of how primitive Phileas Fogg's achievement stands in com~ parison with what the ultimate in American tourism can do. Johnson's record was around the world in 112 hours -- some sources say 120 hours -- during which he took in the funeral of a prime minister, joined a pope in saying Merry Christmas to the world, and racked up a couple of dozen other spectaculars. But the accomplishment was followed by a most unexpected anticlimax.
In his January 2 news conference, Johnson took up the "balance of payments situation" faced by his government. Emergency measures are to be applied and further steps are envisioned, he said. One of them is to bring American tourism under heavy fire. There's just too much of it going on; and Johnson doesn't mean American tourism in Vietnam or anywhere else that troops are needed. He means civilians who want the experience and education of going to places like Europe in peacetime. A penalty tax of $5 or $6 a day may be slapped on them for going outside the Western Hemisphere.
While laws are being considered, patriotic Americans can do something about it right now, in Johnson's considered opinion. "We believe," said the president, "that the most effective action that could be taken would be for the citizens themselves to realize that their traveling abroad and spending their dollars abroad is damaging their country."
The man should know.
JOHNSON DUCKS DEMONSTRATORS IN ROME
By Tullio Venturi
Rome
When the news flashed through Rome that Johnson was on his way to visit the city, preparations were begun immediately to give him an appropriate reception. But not much came of it. One reason was the extraordinary secrecy and precautions of the authorities and Johnson's evident fear of an antiwar demonstration. A more important reason was the role played by the Italian Communist party, which, as the largest party in Italy, should have assumed responsibility for organizing a welcoming party.
But the Italian CP is trapped in a dilemma. On the one hand its leaders feel the need to show militant sectors of its followers that it favors doing something in support of the Vietnamese revolution. On the other hand the leaders want to create as little embarrassment as possible for the Socialist party which is in the government, the CP policy being to serve as the loyal opposition and to do no more than exert pressure on the SP to do what it can to change the government's policy.
Because of the growing radicalization of the youth, the CP is reluctant to call demonstrations, as these tend to get out of hand. When it does organize a denonstration, it seeks to keep it down in size, the easier to control it, and it tries to police the participants, directing its blows particularly against "Trotskyists" and similar elements who seek to give the demonstrations a militant edge.
Johnson's journey was thus troublesome for the CP leaders. They thought the problem could be solved by a trick; namely, -to call for a demonstration in their official paper but without specifying the exact place of assembly. Thus the bulk of the demonstrators would be party members with inside information about the details and the plans.
The police did not rely too much on the capacity of the CP leaders to keep things in hand even with this procedure. Thousands of cops were mobilized to guard strategic spots, above all the U.S. embassy.
Johnson's bodyguards, in turn, did not rely too much on the capacity of the Rome police department. The American president was shuttled about the city in an armored helicopter and his schedule of appointments was kept strictly secret until after he had left for the Azores.
The demonstration to protest Johnson's visit was therefore not impressive. Not more than 1,500 assembled at the peak of the affair.
They moved toward the U.S. embassy but this was guarded by such a big detachment of police that it was impossible to get anywhere near it. The marchers therefore paraded through the center of the city.
Difficulties occurred during the march when CP squads sought to tear down a big banner carried by some leftist groups that read: "The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution."
After the march passed the residence of the president of the country, it broke into two sections. One, led by the CP bureaucrats, continued parading and then concluded with a speech from a member of the CP national leadership. This was a rather small contingent.
The other section, which was both larger and more militant, proceeded to the Quirinale (the palace of the president) where they set up picket lines.
A CP squad sought to get at least part of this group to join the other section of the march. Their efforts were firmly rejected.
Not much that was new came from the demonstration other than the appreciation reached by fresh layers of the youth on the actual role of the CP leadership and on the need to better organize the left.
The police showed that they were unconvinced that the CP leaders can always control their own demonstrations. They proved by their attitude that they were more realistic than the CP bureaucrats.