A Homely Sort Of Fellow’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31196, 21 October 1966, Page 2

A Homely Sort Of Fellow’

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, October 20. Two Nelson doctors today returned from a four-minute meeting with President Johnson in Wellington with a diagnosis that “he’s a very homely sort of fellow.”

Dr. P. C. E. Brunette, former medical superintendent

of Nelson Hospital, and Mr D. R. Ryder, a surgeon, treated the President when he was a young naval officer in 1942. Mr Johnson came under their care when he was a patient at the Namaka Military Hospital in Fiji, suffering from a tropical disease.

Neither doctor remembers treating the 33-year-old lieutenant-commander, but the White House did, for it invited both men to a reception for the President at Government House, Wellington. Dr. Brunette said: “The President is a very homely sort of fellow. We discussed his illness, but neither of us could remember each other.” The President said he was privileged to see the two doctors again. “So here I am,” Mr Johnson said. “If you don’t like it, blame them.” The two doctors described their four-minute chat with Mr Johnson as an “extremely impressive occasion.” “We found him to be a very charming and easy person to talk to,” Mr Ryder said. “There were no airs or graces about him —he moved freely among the 300 guests and chatted with everyone. “Mind you,” he added, “the security boys weren’t far behind most of the time.”