"Dissension Without Dissection"

Lyndon Johnson has a thing about polls. Favorable ones he likes to pack in a pocket like a pistol, and usually he has one of the fastest draws in Washington. But last week's Harris and Gallup samplings were more like lead than lightning. The Johnson popularity was down to 55%, plenty for a landslide in any presidential election but a new low for him. Support for his conduct of the Viet Nam war dipped below 50% for the first time. A clear majority of 54% said they favored a U.S. pull-out from Viet Nam if the confrontation there between Buddhist monks and military men flared into full-scale civil war.

Obviously, the burdens of world leadership were weighing as heavily on the people as on the President. In the presidential case, momentarily at least, the crisis in Viet Nam provoked a feeling that maybe he'd be happier somewhere else. Like Texas. Gesturing at an oil painting of blooming bluebonnets that hangs in the den adjoining his oval office, the President said almost wistfully to a visitor early in the week: "There's where I'd really like to be right now."

Enlightenment Needed. There is only one answer to such a mood: work. The President sent Secretary of State Dean Rusk up Capitol Hill with special congressional briefings on Viet Nam--a performance that provided at least one House Republican with a dry chuckle: "Obviously, there's one more 'nervous Nellie' in Washington after those polls." The Congressmen listened to Rusk's assurances that South Viet Nam's political crisis was easing, but few were wholly convinced. "We may have to make a decision damned soon about whether to pull out of the war," growled South Carolina Democrat L. Mendel Rivers. "The President has got to level with the American people," said House G.O.P. Leader Gerald Ford. "We don't need vindictiveness--against Fulbright or the Republicans. What we need is enlightenment."

The President got into motion by visiting Bethesda Naval Hospital to call on several ailing legislators--including Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, undergoing treatment for a urinary-tract infection. While there, he dropped in on Viet Nam casualties in the neuro-surgical ward. One young marine, Lance Corporal Virgil Bohler of Silsbee, Texas, had been there in October when Lyndon came by while recuperating from his gall-bladder operation. At that time, Bohler lay unconscious and near death with a bullet wound in his head.

This time the President, obviously delighted by the boy's recovery, told him banteringly: "You didn't pay me much mind when I came to see you last October." "That's about right, sir," said Bohler. "I didn't even know you were here." Before departing, the Commander in Chief invited Bohler to drop by the White House when he gets out.

Cake Defrosted. As Stygian as the week was when it started, things soon began lightening to at least a bearable shade of grey as a semblance of order returned to Viet Nam. Back home, things seemed a little more normal when Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen reverberated out of Walter Reed Hospital, supporting himself on crutches after breaking a thighbone May 10.

For the most part, the President stayed at his desk and off the firing line himself, leaving the debating on Viet Nam to his lieutenants. Thus, after United Nations Secretary-General U Thant went before the Amalgamated Clothing Workers in Atlantic City with his readymade pitch for negotiations among "all powers concerned," it was Vice President Hubert Humphrey who came to the same rostrum the following day with the Administration's tailor-made reply. "The roadblock to peace is not in the White House," said Humphrey. "The roadblock is in the mind of the enemy."

Dean Rusk made much the same point before the Council on Foreign Relations in Manhattan's WaldorfAstoria Hotel. "There is no gimmick, there is no special device, there is no formula which is going to move us toward peace if Hanoi and Peking are determined to seize South Viet Nam by force," declared Rusk. "When all the frosting is off the cake, it boils down to this--when they keep coming at you, do you get out of the way or meet them? We shall meet them."

Viet Nam is still the President's prime preoccupation, but he seems more hopeful about the prospects there than he did only a week ago. Patiently he emphasizes that it is, after all, a desperately inexperienced country. "We've had 200 years of experience and we can cope with these things," he told a visitor last week. "We have dissension without dissection." Warily, he avoids either endorsing or denouncing Premier Ky, points out that the job for the U.S. is "to work with this generation," not with one man or one faction. In sum, he sees the possibility of significant gains --and soon. "The last twelve months was the year of preparation," says the President. "This year, we hope, is the year of performance."

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