THE LAST MESSAGE-AND ADIEU

Mistakes have been made, as all can see and I admit. But I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent.

IT was not Lyndon Johnson who spoke those self-justifying words, but Ulysses S. Grant in his farewell annual message on the State of the Union in 1876. The Grant Administration was pockmarked with scandal and ineptitude, and Grant's standing among scholars of the presidency is no higher now than it was among the people then. Last week Johnson, the 36th President of the U.S., took his own leave of a nation disenchanted with a far-off war and deeply perturbed by its myriad problems at home. His apologia was not abject like Grant's, but his peroration contained a latter-day echo of it. "I hope it may be said a hundred years from now," Johnson told the Congress, "that by working together we helped to make our country more just. That's what I hope. But I believe that at least it will be said that we tried."

The outgoing President chose to deliver his final State of the Union message in person; the last President to do so was John Adams in 1800. Lyndon Johnson had a special reason for his decision, which he confessed was "just pure sentimental." He is a child of the Congress, and he was at home again for the last time as President. "Most all of my life as a public official has been spent here in this building," he said. "For 38 years, since I worked in that gallery as a doorkeeper in the House of Representatives, I have known these halls and I have known most of the men pretty well who walked them." The Congress, always generous to its own, responded warmly.

Unfinished Business. Johnson won a 31-minute standing ovation when he strode into the House chamber behind Doorkeeper William ("Fishbait") Miller and stood behind the lectern, nodding and smiling to acknowledge the applause. Then, pleading yet proud, he recited some of his Administration's achievements at home: Medicare, three far-reaching civil rights laws on housing and voting, job programs that have trained 5,000,000, the lowest unemployment in nearly 20 years (3.3%), more than 1,500,000 college students on federal scholarships, Project Head Start for preschool children, support for pupils below college level.

There was also plenty of unfinished business, which Johnson urged the Congress to complete: a draft system based on selection by lot, a licensing and registration law for firearms, and the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, which has been pending in the Senate since July.

Johnson's mood was solemn as he spoke of the war. "I regret more than any of you know," he said, "that it has not been possible to restore peace to South Viet Nam." But he scorned critics who have contended that Viet Nam has drained needed funds from butter for guns. "We have been able in the last five years to increase our commitments for such things as health and education from $30 billion in 1964 to $68 billion in the coming fiscal year. That's more than it's ever been increased in the 188 years of this Republic, notwithstanding Viet Nam." Increases in social-welfare spending were just what most congressional Democrats wanted to hear about.

Broad and Deep. The U.S., said Johnson, continues to enjoy an unequalled economic boom. "Our prosperity is broad and deep," he said. "It's brought record profits, the highest in our history, record wages. Our gross national product has grown more in the last five years than in any other period in our nation's history." The G.N.P. was $589,200,000,000 when Johnson took office; for calendar 1968 it is $861 billion. Unexpectedly, he also announced that the U.S. has achieved an international balance of payments surplus for the first time since 1957, which should add new strength to the dollar (see BUSINESS).

In a separate message to Congress, Johnson proposed a budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 that comes to $195,300,000,000, an $11.6 billion jump from the present year's estimated total. The nation can afford this new federal spending, Johnson explained, precisely because it is so prosperous. He predicted budget surpluses of $2.4 billion for fiscal 1969 and $3.4 billion for fiscal 1970. Total defense outlays will creep up only $500 million to $81.5 billion, and the proportion going for Viet Nam will drop, for the first time, from 35.5% to 31.2%--partly because the costly bombing of North Viet Nam has been cut back sharply, partly because major base construction is now nearly complete. Administration officials were careful to say that the cut signified no lessening of the U.S. war effort.

Campaign Commitments. Johnson's other budget proposals for fiscal 1970 include ending the distinction between first-class mail and airmail, since much long-distance mail now goes by air anyway; the new flat rate would be 7-c- an ounce. Congressional salaries would go from $30,000 to $42,500 a year, those of Cabinet members from $35,000 to $60,000. (Last week the Congress approved a 100% salary boost for the President, to $200,000.) Johnson requested no new money for the U.S. supersonic transport and suggested cuts of $300 million in space spending, $540 million in farm-price supports and $120 million in foreign aid. He asked for an extra $743 million for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, mainly for its model-cities and housing-subsidy programs.

Nixon, of course, can revise the proposed budget. Though he and President Johnson conferred by telephone for 40 minutes shortly before Johnson gave his State of the Union speech, Nixon is only tentatively committed to extending the 10% income surtax for another year. Because Nixon is pledged to halt inflation, however, he will find it doubly difficult to end the surtax and thus erase the deflationary surplus Johnson hopes to create. Johnson asked an overall 13% increase in social security benefits; in the campaign, Nixon proposed to tie social security payments to a cost-of-living index so that benefits would rise and fall with consumer costs. Given his further campaign commitments to urban aid and new weapons systems, Nixon probably cannot reduce notably the total amount of spending that Johnson recommended.

Upturned Faces. As he concluded his State of the Union address, Johnson put in an unusual word with the Congress for his successor. "President-elect Nixon, in the days ahead, is going to need your understanding, just as I did, and he is entitled to have it," said the President. "And I hope every member will remember that the burdens he will bear as our President will be borne for all of us."

Lyndon Johnson paused and looked down at the upturned faces before him--the black-robed members of the Supreme Court, the glittering diplomatic corps, his Cabinet, the Senators and Representatives. "And now it's time to leave," he said.

The members of Congress tried to sing Auld Lang Syne, and the hand-clapping was warm. This was really goodbye to the great love of Lyndon Johnson's life, the U.S. Congress. His car hurried through the clear, cold night of Washington, back toward the White House. He rode with Lady Bird, and they swooped down Independence Avenue and around the white obelisk of the Washington Monument and then back to the South Portico. L.B.J. was a different and silent man, because this at last was his public finale and his personal adieu.

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