Flying High

After a mere three days in the sunny seclusion of his father's sumptuous Palm Beach mansion, President-elect John Kennedy was off and running. He flew to two top-level conferences: one with Vice President Richard Nixon, at his Key Biscayne retreat 20 minutes by plane down the coast of Florida from Palm Beach, and the other with Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson, at his L.B.J. ranch in Texas.

The conference with Nixon (reportedly prearranged by a telephone call between Joe Kennedy and his old friend Herbert Hoover) was outwardly just a good-will trip, to heal the recent campaign wounds. After greeting each other warmly in front of Nixon's stucco villa, the two recent adversaries retreated behind the screening around the Vice President's sun porch and talked animatedly for more than an hour. They talked some about the problems of transition and foreign policy, discussed the subject of possible Republicans in the Kennedy Administration, and agreed to meet again in about two weeks (when Nixon might be better prepared to submit names of likely Republicans for whatever jobs Kennedy wants to fill).

Beyond that, there were no specifics. "The fact that I am here indicates, I think, what my desire is for our relationship," said Kennedy in a post-meeting press conference. "A very gracious act," said Nixon at his own separate conference. "I, of course, would have been very glad to have called upon him, and the fact that he wanted to come here, I think, is an excellent example of how our American system works." Nixon took pains to say that he and Kennedy agreed on "the proper role of an opposition party and of an opposition leader"--a remark that was interpreted as 1) an indication that he would accept no job in the Kennedy Administration, and 2) notice to any wondering Republicans that he frankly intends to be the G.O.P. leader.

Hopping over to Texas two days later, Kennedy landed in a drizzle at the L.B.J. ranch, was met by Lyndon Baines Johnson outfitted in a Texas rancher's cream colored leather jacket, tan Stetson, tight pants and cowboy boots. Johnson seemed crestfallen when his leader, in grey pinstripe Ivy League, politely but firmly declined to put on a five-gallon Stetson before photographers. But L.B.J. quickly picked up the pace, hauled Kennedy off for a bumpy inspection tour in a Lincoln convertible while the press and Secret Service men trailed unhappily behind. The President-elect peered through the windshield wipers at white-faced Herefords blinking in the headlights, and the Vice President-elect reported their whereabouts to the ranch house over his radiotelephone ("We're down here by Grandpop's house, near the old graveyard").

Back at the house, the two men talked intermittently during the next 24 hours, with time out for a deer hunt by the dawn's early light (Kennedy and Johnson each bagged two bucks--the legal limit) and Lyndon and Lady Bird's 26th wedding anniversary dinner (one anniversary gift: a silver tray, from "Jack and Jackie"). The two men mulled over plans for the organization of the new Congress, the NATO parliamentarians' meeting in Paris this week (Johnson will be chairman of the U.S. delegation), and the L.B.J. role in the new Administration. "It is my belief," said Kennedy, "that Senator Johnson's great talents and experience equip him to be the most effective Vice President in the history of our country."

Back in Palm Beach, Jack Kennedy busied himself with some thick reports on the state of the nation and the world, received a parade of guests, and relaxed in the sun and the surf when he found the time.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.