Johnson Little Known But Powerful

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29250, 7 July 1960, Page 13

Johnson Little Known But Powerful

LOS ANGELES, July 5. Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, the intense, hard-drivijig Texan who leads the Democratic Party in the Senate, has in the last few years earned the reputation of being second only to President Eisenhower as the most powerful man in the United States.

Yet there are thousands of Americans who probably do not know who he is. And certainly he is not very well known outside his own country. An internationalist and an acknowledged expert on defence, he has won his position of influence through, his astute legislative generalship and his remarkable ability to control the Upper House in Congress. If anyone can snatch the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination from Senator John Kennedy next week, ij is probably 51-year-old Lyndon Johnson. The one possible handicap that looms in the path of Senator Johnson’s White House ambitions is the tag of “Southerner” that he has to bear by reason of his Texas birth and associations. But he and his supporters claim that he is, in fact, more of a Westerner than a Southerner in outlook and his record on the key issue of civil rights for negroes has been more than moderate, althougb not enough to sway the Northern liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Senator Johnson likes everything around him to bear his initials—L.B.J. That is the name of his ranch and the same initials are borne by every member of his family. His wife, whom he married in 1934, was christened Claudia, but has been' known as Lady Bird since the age of two. That is the name under which she is known in the official biography of her husband in the Congressional Directory.

Hieir two daughters are Lynda Bird Johnson and Lucy Baines Johnson. Even the family dog is called Little Beagle Johnson. His supporters in the Presidential nomination race have coined the slogan: “All the way with L.BJ.” . ’

Lyndon Johnson’s political future opened suddenly in 1937 when, at the age of 29, he was elected to fill a vacancy in the United States House of Representatives. He won five more successive terms in the House before successfully seeking election to the Senate in 1948. During the war he achieved the distinction of becoming the first member of Congress to enlist in the. United States armed forces. He was commissioned as a lieu-tenant-commander in the Navy and won the Silver Star for gallantry in the South Pacific. Lyndon Johnson’s rise in the Senate was meteoric. He was elected Democratic whip in 1951 and in 1953 became his party's leader •in the chamber the youngest man ever to fill the post.

In mid-1955, a few months before President Eisenhower suffered bis heart attack. Senator Johnson himself was stricken with a massive heart attack. As he put it it was “as bad as a man can have and still live." Today, he is robust and seemingly

able to cope with his rigorous Senate routine with little difficulty

A firm believer in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and other defensive alliances. Senator Johnson has fought hard on behalf of President Eisenhower's foreign aid programmes and has made his foreign policy views unmistakeably clear.

His forthright speaking against Communism and on American ideals won Senator Johnson an unusual tribute last year from Mr Nikita Khrushchev. When the Soviet Prime Minister was introduced to Senator Johnson in Washington, he greeted him by saying: “I do not know you. But I have read all your speeches and I do not like any of them.” But it is in the Senate itself that Lyndon Johnson has had his greatest moments, where he has been hailed by some of his colleagues as a political and parliamentary genius. He has been described as a master of compromise, and he sums up his philosophy thus: “I would rather win a convert than an argument”

For all his skill and polish, Lyndon Johnson is still a frontiersman by instinct. His ranch at Johnson City could well provide the background for a Wild West film. When he is in residence at the ranch, founded by his grandfather, his own personal pennant flies below the United States and Texan flags.