The Man Who Had the Best Time

Hail to the Chief, who in triumph advances . . .

"Are you comin' to the Inauguration, Aunt Jessie?" asked the Chief. Mrs. Jes sie Hunter, a widow and an old friend of the family, shook her head, flustered. "I haven't been asked," she piped politely. The President of the U.S. put his arm around the elderly woman. "Pack your dress," he said in that soft, earnest tone, "and come on with us. Be at the ranch no later than 4:40. Air Force One won't leave without you."

Well, Aunt Jessie made it. And so did just about everybody else worth naming --except a few. Cousin Oriole, in her 70s, was not up to the trip. Dwight Eisenhower was taking the California sun, Harry Truman was feeling under the weather, and Jacqueline Kennedy wanted to avoid the inescapably painful comparisons. Uncle Huffman Baines was present, and so was Sam Houston Johnson, Lyndon's brother, and Mrs. Josephs Saunders, Lyndon's aunt, and Rodney White, Lyndon's nephew, and Ave Johnson Cox, Lyndon's cousin, and Lyndon's two sisters, Mrs. Birge Alexander and Mrs. O. P. Bobbitt and their children, Becky Alexander and Philip Bobbitt, and Lady Bird's brother and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Taylor, and Lady Bird's widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Taylor, and her daughter Susan.

Shuffled Beds. With all these people staying at the White House and across the street at Blair House (where Margaret Truman Daniel and her husband were putting up), a lot of beds and rooms needed reshuffling. Luci gave up her bedroom for a dressing-room cot to make space for several good Texas friends; Lynda Bird shared her yellow boudoir with a girl friend, and Governor John Connally got to sleep in Lincoln's bed.

What with so many Texans present, it sometimes seemed as if it had been Jack Kennedy four years ago who really assembled the Great Society and Lyndon Johnson who was now opening up the New Frontier. If so, it was a prosperous, well-behaved and superbly dressed frontier--and a dazzling show. The colors and sounds and faces seemed always the same, suspended for a brief moment, only to shift into new combinations, new designs, new moods. Scenes of high and solemn moment, as in the oath taking, swiftly changed to crowded dance floors, to prancing horses and strutting drum majorettes, to humming cocktail parties, wriggling teenagers, somber prayers, to ear-shattering brass bands endlessly playing Hail to the Chief, to laughter and cheers, to sentimental squeezes and unashamed tears.

And the man who had the best time of all was Lyndon Baines Johnson. Make room for me, mister . . . The big preliminary event came Monday night, a Democratic gala at Washington's cavernous National Guard

Armory for 10,000 people, including the Johnsons and the Humphreys, who were introduced by Gala Chairman Arthur Krim, president of United Artists and a tireless Democratic Party fund raiser. The two-hour variety spectacular featured Alfred Hitchcock, Woody Allen, Johnny Carson, Mike Nichols, Elaine May, Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews and Carol Channing. Harry Belafonte, wearing one of his custom-made undress shirts, knocked out a Michael Row the Boat Ashore, slipping in a few lines about Mississippi and Alabama. Barbra Streisand belted out Happy Days Are Here Again and People for the folks listening without loudspeakers in Baltimore. Dame Margot Fonteyn and fiery young Rudolf Nureyev stopped the show with a magnificent pas de deux. Singer Bobby Darin dedicated a little number he had just turned out on the train coming into town:

Make room for me in the Great Socie-tee,

Make room for me, mister, my brother and my sister,

Make room for me, mister, I've got a dream.

I want to he part of the Great Socie-tee,

Free from pover-tee, built by you and me . . .

The gala was only a warmup. Next day Lyndon and Hubert and their entourage crisscrossed the city tirelessly, ebulliently, paying calls at receptions and parties that seemed to be glowing everywhere, like so many hearthsides on a winter's day. There was a good deal of social handicapping about which ones were the really chic occasions (among the leaders: a joint reception given by Philanthropist Mary Lasker and Washington Lawyer Abe Fortas, parties thrown by Gwen Cafritz and Perle Mesta).

No Reluctance. Hubert, naturally, was in great good humor. "I weighed the decision on the vice-presidency very carefully," he confessed to a group of Young Democrats. "Not long--but carefully." He was not sure just what qualities he had for the job, he said, "but I know one that I didn't have-reluctance!" Hubert allowed as how he had done some research on former Vice Presidents, and on their contributions to the office. He had found them, he said wryly, a most illustrious group. "Who can forget those storied Vice Presidents of the past?" he cried. "William A. Wheeler! Daniel D. Tomkins! Garret A. Hobart! and Henry Wilson!"* Thoroughly elated but also slightly troubled by his new position, Humphrey insisted to friends that "things will be just like they always have been between Muriel and me and our friends."

Walk right in, sit right down . . .

Lyndon, meanwhile, journeyed to a Governors' reception at the Sheraton-Park Hotel. Mrs. Mark Hatfield, wife of Oregon's Republican Governor, pinned a red carnation on Johnson's lapel. Leaving the Michigan booth, Lyndon called to Republican George Romney, "Pick up the phone and call me any time!" He lingered long, speaking softly to Governor Paul Johnson at the Mississippi booth. Connecticut's John Dempsey urged Lady Bird, with a nod at the President: "Take care of him, sweet Lady."

The Inauguration Eve concert, with Washington's National Symphony under Howard Mitchell, and with Violinist Isaac Stern, Pianist Van Cliburn, and Singers Todd Duncan and Theresa Coleman, was the cultural event of the week.

Mitchell's Beethoven, Stern's Mozart and Cliburn's Liszt were impeccable, and a Duncan-Coleman medley from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess got rousing cheers, despite complaints next day from critics over the absence of works by living American composers. There were plenty of living celebrities at the reception that followed: Marian Anderson, Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Paul Horgan, Peter Kurd, Jasper Johns, Erich Leinsdorf, Robert Lowell, Gian Carlo Menotti, Anna Moffo, Mark Rothko, W. D. Snodgrass, Edward Steichen, Richard Wilbur, Herman Wouk and Minoru Yamasaki.

They mingled and they ate and they drank. When things loosened up, the crowd made room for indefatigable Luci Baines, who, with her father looking proudly on, gyrated through a vigorous Watusi, an arduous Frug, to such notable compositions as Monkey Climb and Walk Right In.

We're in the money, we're in the money . . .

On Inauguration Day, along Pennsylvania Avenue, the hawkers with buttons and banners and balloons, the concessionaires with hot dogs and soda pop and hot coffee, shuffled into position. Scores of loudspeakers crackled with numbers like We're in the Money and Hello Lyndon. Reporters, photographers and the umbilical-twined television crews crept into their high blinds. Security guards, more than 5,000 of them, roamed through the area. Agents eyed windows to make sure they were shut in accordance with instructions is sued days before. From rooftops, from dark corners, behind Corinthian columns, Secret Service men with guns and electronic gadgetry and TV scanners gazed at the growing throngs. They guarded the speaker's stand in the east plaza of the Capitol, where armor plate braced the floor and 1 1/2-in.-thick bullet proof glass formed a waist-high railing.

O beautiful for spacious skies . . .

The Johnsons arrived at the Capitol riding in the same limousine in which Kennedy had been shot, now covered with a new roof of steel and bulletproof glass. In the car with Lyndon and Lady Bird was North Carolina's Democratic Senator Everett Jordan, an old friend. Lyndon was whisked to a private office off the Rotunda, where he inserted his contact lenses. Then he walked to the platform. The temperature was 38DEG,* but neither Johnson nor Humphrey wore an overcoat.

The marches were played, the prayers were made, and Soprano Leontyne Price sang America, the Beautiful. Humphrey, visibly nervous, was sworn in by House Speaker John McCormack, who now, after 14 months, was relieved of his interim role as presidential successor. At 12:03, Lyndon Johnson took his place before Chief Justice Earl Warren. Across the Potomac, cannon boomed a 21-gun salute. Lady Bird, gazing steadily into Lyndon's eyes, stood between the two men, holding the Johnson family Bible. After repeating the first phrase of his oath, Lyndon realized that he had forgotten to put one hand on the Bible and raise the other; he corrected that, and continued the recitation slowly and so softly that he could scarcely be heard when he concluded, "So help me God." Finishing, he looked at Lady Bird; she squeezed his arm. The President turned to the crowd and be gan: "My fellow countrymen . . ."

The speech took 21 minutes. Then the great solemnity of the moment began to dissolve. It was time for lunch with Congressmen and friends. Still, the process of history in which he had just participated was an affecting thing for Lyndon Johnson. En route to the luncheon, he stopped in his tracks, impulsively, wordlessly, leaned over and kissed his wife on the mouth. Lynda Bird saw it, and she moved up, drew the President's head down and kissed him on both cheeks. Johnson gazed down at Luci Baines, and she too kissed him. Then they walked on.

Min-na-so-ta, hats off to thee!

The time came at last for that most bewildering of American phenomena, the inaugural parade, a fixture that comes so naturally to a spectacle-loving public that few people ever think to question its necessity or its form. Yet there it was, with all the oomph and oompah, the crashing brass, the flights of unwitting comic relief, the displays of acrobatics, the precision marching, the dimpled knees and limber legs, the earnest faces of the young people who had come from all over the nation.

At least the parade officials tried to keep the spectacle within the bounds of human endurance and decreed that the last marchers must pass the reviewing stand at the White House before sun down. To underline America's pacific intentions, the customary show of rockets and tanks and guns was banned; the armed forces' participation was limited to one division apiece, plus small representations from the service academies. Each state, moreover, was held to a Governor's car, one float, one band and one marching unit, although Texas and Minnesota, in homage to the President and Vice President, were awarded an extra band each.

In the Glow. They lined up and began the long march past the reviewing stand at the White House, which was walled by bulletproof glass and rimmed with scores of guards. Lady Bird was in a brilliant red dress and matching coat, Muriel Humphrey in a light-blue wool dress she had made herself. Both men's faces glistened in the glow of spotlights, giving them the look of a ruddy tan. And both seemed extraordinarily happy. Johnson appeared to recognize at least one individual in each of the 50 states' flotillas. Now he clapped heartily, now he smiled a big Texas grin, now he shot an affectionate wink, now he made the O.K. sign with his thumb and forefinger, now his characteristic palm-down bye-bye wave.

The states tried to depict themes representative of the Great Society. Texas trundled by proudly with a model of the LBJ Ranch, including a plastic Pedernales River, and a beagle with a tail that wagged. Minnesota's banner heralded the state as the SOURCE OF MAN POWER AND BRAINPOWER, while Hubert's old college band cut loose with The Minnesota Rouser. Education and recreation were the principal themes, Southern states, by and large, had the prettiest girls, and each state had some touch that was indubitably its own.

Got the world on a string, sittin' on a rainbow . . .

As the last float rolled down Penn sylvania Avenue, Lady Bird leaned to Lyndon's ear and whispered a word. The President turned and said: "Thank you very much. You are wonderful people, and you have made this such a lovely day, and we will try so hard to be worthy of your trust and friendship."

After dining at the White House with their guests, the Johnsons drove out for the final ceremonials, the Inauguration balls--and that is just what the President had: a ball. At the Mayflower and the Statler Hilton and the Armory and the Shoreham, and what Lyndon calls the Sheraton-Texas (where most Texans made their headquarters), Johnson stopped long enough to say a few words and to shake hands right and left, just as if he were campaigning. He also got into the crush on the dance floor, as the band played oldies like The Way You Look Tonight and I've Got the World on a String. Luci, the Watusi expert, burned up the floor with her best beau, Paul Betz, a student at Maryland's Mount Saint Mary's College.* Lynda and Manhattan Stockbroker (and onetime White House aide) David Lefeve, and Hubert and Muriel Humphrey joined the rest.

An "Uninaugural Ball." With commendable skill, the President danced with Lady Bird, changed mid-dance to pick up with Muriel Humphrey, the wives of Maryland's Senator Daniel Brewster, Pennsylvania's Senator Joe Clark, Commerce Secretary John Conner, Louisiana's Congressman Hale Boggs, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, Postmaster General John Gronowski and Minnesota Governor Karl Rolvaag. He delighted the crowd when he helped hoist Margaret Truman Daniel over the rail at her box and took her for a brief spin on the floor.

Many leading Republicans had of course been invited, but most of them attended a sort of "uninaugural ball" at the Congressional Hotel, where the dancing was done by, among others, Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney and William Scranton, who had also gamely ridden in the parade earlier.

Meanwhile, Johnson continued his rounds. At the Sheraton-Park, he read off some witticisms that sounded a little like discards from a Bob Hope routine. "The Secretary of Labor is in charge of finding you a job, the Secretary of the Treasury is in charge of taking half of your money away from you, and the Attorney General is in charge of suing you for the other half. . . . Never before have so many paid so much to dance so little."

At the Statler Hilton, Johnson introduced Humphrey as "the greatest Vice President 1 have ever known," and Hubert replied: "I had a feeling that after that gracious introduction, what you are really saying is that you are going to do the dancing and let me dj the speaking." Lady Bird got in a word too: "Thank you--this is a day for joy for the Johnsons and the Humphreys." And Muriel: "Imagine following three of the greatest speakers in the whole United States! Have a good time tonight. It's a great day, and great days are ahead."

*Vice Presidents, respectively, under Hayes, Monroe, McKinley, Grant. *Holding Bible, Humphrey's longtime friend, Minneapolis Businessman Fred Gates. *Luci, the White House disclosed last week, "has been taking instruction in the Roman Catholic faith." The President is a member of the Disciples of Christ, but the two Johnson daughters and Lady Bird are Episcopalians. Since "the family considers religion a personal and individual matter," the White House provided no further details, but was careful to point out that Luci's taking instruction does not necessarily mean that she intends to become a convert. Paul Betz, who "pinned" her recently, is a Roman Catholic.

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