From Duty, with Strength

THE PRESIDENCY

Like a muse-spurned poet thumbing through the rhyming dictionary, Lyndon Johnson diligently seeks out the sayings of his embattled predecessors. Last month his favorite prophet was Abraham Lincoln. This month's oracle is his lifelong idol and sometime mentor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his commentaries on the Viet Nam war last week, L.B.J. invoked F.D.R. to rally support for the cause.

With the ability, wealth, imagination and governmental resources to meet its pressing problems, said the President at the swearing-in ceremony for CAB Head John Crocker, the U.S. has nothing to fear but fear itself: "I sometimes think we have the power to deal with any foe anywhere except within our own boundaries. A great deal of our weaknesses are caused by pitting our strength against each other and chewing on ourselves."

No Sabers. At a Medal of Honor ceremony for Marine Corps Major Robert J. Modrzejewski and 2nd Lieut. John J. McGinty III,* Johnson recalled Roosevelt's reminder five months after Pearl Harbor: "We have had no illusions about the fact that this is a tough job--and a long one." He added: "Responsibility never comes easy. Neither does freedom come free." As for the "open," "undisguised" North Vietnamese aggression, said Johnson, reverting to Abe, "the early pretense of attempting to fool some of the people some of the time had the cloak pulled from around it and even they have abandoned it, as have their spokesmen. Let us have no illusions, either."

Later, at a Veterans of Foreign Wars dinner, he declared: "We rattle no sabers. We seek to intimidate no man.

But neither shall we be intimidated.

And from American responsibilities--God willing--we shall never retreat. Duty always travels with strength."

*The 29th and 30th of the Viet Nam war--16 of them posthumous.

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