Johnson Less Popular

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 17

Johnson Less Popular

(N.Z. P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, March 13. President Johnson was faced yesterday .with new reports that his popularity among American voters and his own Democratic Party was slipping badly.

The latest Gallup poll claimed that the Vietnam war was exacting a heavy toll on his political strength. It said his over-all popularity rating stood at 45 per cent approval, near his alltime low of 44 per cent a year ago. A “Washington Post” survey said most Democratic congressmen up for reelection next year—when the Presidential election also will be held—were trying to avoid a close association with Mr Johnson. With the President’s popularity slipping, it said, the Congressmen feared that too close an identification with him could cost them their seats. It added, however, that they had not turned their backs on him, as he was the party leader. All but a handful rejected the idea of switching their allegiance to Senator Robert Kennedy. Not Perturbed For his own part, Mr Johnson does not seem to be perturbed by the latest results In a little-publicised speech last Thursday he privately warned against buying peace in Vietnam at the price of a “lust for popularity.” The President gave a closed-door speech to members of the Democratic National Committee. He spoke of other Presidents— Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower—whose popularity had suffered in the buffetings of difficult ventures. Mr Johnson made it clear he was going to pursue his

present course in Vietnam—no matter what the criticisms. After promising to keep on searching for peace, the President said: “But we have also found that peace, an honourable peace, must sometime be bought at a price and it must not be the price of a temporary lust for popularity. “When Chamberlain returned with his umbrella he was high in all the popularity polls for a time.”