Edge of Eternity (62 page)

Skip stood up. “Thank you, Senator,” he said. “He'll be very pleased.”

George said: “Before you go, Skip . . . I know the new president has a lot on his mind, but sometime in the next few days he's going to turn his thoughts to the civil rights bill. Please call me if you think I can help in any way at all.”

“Thanks, George. I appreciate that.” Skip left.

Greg said: “Nicely done.”

“Just making sure he knows the door is open.”

“That kind of thing is so important in politics.”

Their food came. When the waiters had retreated, George picked up his knife and fork. “I'm a Bobby Kennedy man, through and through,”
he said as he began to carve his lobster. “But Johnson shouldn't be underestimated.”

“You're right, but don't overestimate him either.”

“What does that mean?”

“Lyndon has two failings. He's intellectually weak. Oh, listen, he's as cunning as a Texas polecat, but that's not the same thing. He went to schoolteacher college, and never learned abstract thinking. He feels inferior to us Harvard-educated types, and he's right. His grasp of international politics is feeble. The Chinese, the Buddhists, Cubans, Bolsheviks—such people have different ways of thinking that he will never understand.”

“What's his other failing?”

“He's morally weak, too. He has no principles. His support of civil rights is genuine, but it's not ethical. He sympathizes with colored people as underdogs, and he thinks he's an underdog, too, because he comes from a poor Texas family. It's a gut reaction.”

George smiled: “He just got you to do exactly what he wanted.”

“Correct. Lyndon knows how to manipulate people one at a time. He's the most skillful parliamentary politician I've ever met. But he's not a statesman. Jack Kennedy was the opposite: hopelessly incompetent at managing Congress, superb on the international stage. Lyndon will deal with Congress masterfully, but as leader of the free world? I don't know.”

“Do you think he has any chance of getting the civil rights bill past Congressman Howard Smith's committee?”

Greg grinned. “I can't wait to see what Lyndon will do. Eat your lobster.”

Next day Senator Mundt's wheat bill was defeated by fifty-seven votes to thirty-six.

The headline on the day after read:

Wheat Bill—First Johnson Victory

•   •   •

The funeral was over. Kennedy was gone, and Johnson was president. The world had changed, but George did not know what that meant, and nor did anyone else. What kind of president would Johnson be? How would he be different? A man most people did not know had suddenly
become leader of the free world and ruler of its most powerful country. What was he going to do?

He was about to say.

The chamber of the House of Representatives was packed full. Television lights glared on the assembled congressmen and senators. The justices of the Supreme Court wore their black robes, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff glittered with medals.

George was seated next to Skip Dickerson in the gallery, which was equally full, with people sitting on the steps in the aisles. George studied Bobby Kennedy, down below at one end of the cabinet row, head bent, staring at the floor. Bobby had got thinner in the five days since the assassination. Also, he had taken to wearing his dead brother's clothes, which did not fit him, and added to the impression of a man who had shrunk.

In the presidential box sat Lady Bird Johnson with her two daughters, one plain, one pretty, all three women having old-fashioned hairstyles. With them in the box were several Democratic Party luminaries: Mayor Daley of Chicago, Governor Lawrence of Pennsylvania, and Arthur Schlesinger, the Kennedys' in-house intellectual, who—George happened to know—was already conspiring to unseat Johnson in next year's presidential race. Surprisingly, there were also two black faces in the box. George knew who they were: Zephyr and Sammy Wright, cook and chauffeur to the Johnson family. Was that a good sign?

The big double doors swung open. A doorkeeper with the comic name of Fishbait Miller shouted: “Mr. Speaker! The president of the United States!” Then Lyndon Johnson walked in, and everyone stood up and applauded.

George had two worrying questions about Lyndon Johnson, and both would be answered today. The first was: Would he abandon the troublesome civil rights bill? Pragmatists in the Democratic Party were urging him to do just that. Johnson would have a good excuse, if he wanted one: President Kennedy had failed to get congressional support for the bill and it was doomed to failure. The new president was entitled to give it up as a bad job. Johnson could say that legislation on the crippling, divisive issue of segregation must wait until after the election.

If he did say that, the civil rights movement would be set back years.
The racists would celebrate victory, the Ku Klux Klan would feel that everything they had done was justified, and the corrupt white police, judges, church leaders, and politicians of the South would know they could carry on persecuting and beating and torturing and murdering Negroes with no fear of justice.

But if Johnson did not say that, if he affirmed his support for civil rights, there was another question: Would he have the authority to fill Kennedy's shoes? That question, too, would be answered in the next hour, and the prospects were poor. Lyndon was a smooth operator one-on-one; he was at his least impressive when speaking to large groups on formal occasions—which was precisely what he had to do in a few moments' time. For the American people, this was his first major appearance as their leader, and it would define him, for better or worse.

Skip Dickerson was biting his nails. George said to him: “Did you write the speech?”

“A few lines of it. It was a team effort.”

“What's he going to say?”

Skip shook his head anxiously. “Wait and see.”

Washington insiders expected Johnson to screw up. He was a bad public speaker, tedious and stiff. Sometimes he rushed his words, sometimes he sounded ponderous. When he wanted to emphasize something he just shouted. His gestures were embarrassingly awkward: he would lift one hand and jab a finger in the air, or raise both arms and wave his fists. Speeches generally revealed Lyndon at his worst.

George could not read anything in Johnson's demeanor as he walked through the applauding crowd, went up to the dais, stood at the lectern, and opened a black loose-leaf notebook. He showed neither confidence nor nervousness as he put on a pair of rimless spectacles, then waited patiently until the applause died down and the audience settled in their seats.

At last he spoke. In an even, measured tone of voice he said: “All I have I would have given, gladly, not to be standing here today.”

The chamber became hushed. He had struck exactly the right note of sorrowful humility. It was a good start, George thought.

Johnson continued in the same vein, speaking with slow dignity. If he felt the impulse to rush, he was controlling it firmly. He wore a
dark-blue suit and tie, and a shirt with a tab-fastened collar, a style considered formal in the South. He looked occasionally from one side to the other, speaking to the whole of the chamber and at the same time seeming to command it.

Echoing Martin Luther King, he talked of dreams: Kennedy's dreams of conquering space, of education for all children, of the Peace Corps. “This is our challenge,” he said. “Not to hesitate, not to pause, not to turn about and linger over this evil moment, but to continue on our course so that we may fulfill the destiny that history has set for us.”

He had to stop, then, because of the applause.

Then he said: “Our most immediate tasks are here on this hill.”

This was the crunch. Capitol Hill, where Congress sat, had been at war with the president for most of 1963. Congress had the power to delay legislation, and used it often, even when the president had campaigned and won public support for his plans. But since John Kennedy announced his civil rights bill they had gone on strike, like a factory full of militant workers, delaying everything, mulishly refusing to pass even routine bills, scorning public opinion and the democratic process.

“First,” said Johnson, and George held his breath while he waited to hear what the new president would put first.

“No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.”

George leaped to his feet, clapping for joy. He was not the only one: the applause burst out again, and this time went on longer than previously.

Johnson waited for it to die down, then said: “We have talked long enough in this country about civil rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time,
now,
to write the next chapter—and to write it in the books of law.”

They applauded again.

Euphoric, George looked at the few black faces in the chamber: five Negro congressmen, including Gus Hawkins of California, who actually looked white; Mr. and Mrs. Wright in the presidential box, clapping; a scatter of dark faces among the spectators in the gallery. Their expressions showed relief, hope, and gladness.

Then his eye fell on the rows of seats behind the cabinet, where the senior senators sat, most of them Southerners, sullen and resentful.

Not a single one was joining in the applause.

•   •   •

Skip Dickerson laid it out to George six days later in the small study next to the Oval Office. “Our only chance is a discharge petition.”

“What's that?”

Dickerson pushed his blond forelock out of his eyes. “It's a resolution passed by Congress discharging the rules committee from control of the bill and forcing it to be sent to the floor for debate.”

George felt frustrated that these arcane procedures had to be gone through so that Maria's grandfather would not be thrown in jail for registering to vote. “I've never heard of that,” he said.

“We need a majority vote. Southern Democrats will be against us, so I calculate we're fifty-eight votes short.”

“Shit. We need fifty-eight Republicans to support us before we can do the right thing?”

“Yes. And that's where you come in.”

“Me?”

“A lot of Republicans claim to support civil rights. After all, theirs is the party of Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves. We want Martin Luther King and all the Negro leaders to call their Republican supporters, explain this situation to them, and tell them to vote for the petition. The message is that you can't be in favor of civil rights unless you're in favor of the petition.”

George nodded. “That's good.”

“Some will say they're in favor of civil rights but they don't like this procedural hurry-up. They need to understand that Senator Howard Smith is a hard-core segregationist who will make sure his committee debates the rules until it's too late to pass the bill. What he's doing is not
delay,
it's
sabotage.
”

“Okay.”

A secretary put her head around the door and said: “He's ready for you.”

The two young men stood up and walked into the Oval Office.

As always, George was struck by the sheer size of Lyndon Johnson.
He was six foot three, but height was only part of it. His head was big, his nose was long, his earlobes were like pancakes. He shook George's hand, then held on to it, grasping George's shoulder with his other hand, standing close enough to make George feel uncomfortable at the intimacy.

Johnson said: “George, I've asked all the Kennedy people to stay on at the White House and help me. You're all Harvard educated and I went to Southwest Texas State Teachers' College. See, I need y'all more than he did.”

George did not know what to say. This level of humility was embarrassing. After a hesitation he said: “I'm here to help you any way I can, Mr. President.”

By now a thousand people must have said that or something similar, but Johnson reacted as if he had never heard it before. “I sure appreciate you saying that, George,” he said fervently. “Thank you.” Then he got down to business. “A lot of people have asked me to soften up the civil rights bill to make it easier for Southerners to swallow. They've suggested taking out the prohibition against segregation in public accommodations. I'm not willing to do that, George, for two reasons. The first is that they're going to hate the bill regardless of how hard or soft it is, and I don't believe they'll support it no matter how much I draw its teeth.”

That sounded right to George. “If you're going to have a fight, you might as well fight for what you really want.”

“Exactly. And I'll tell you the second reason. I have a friend and employee called Mrs. Zephyr Wright.”

George recalled Mr. and Mrs. Wright, who had been in the presidential box at the House of Representatives.

Johnson went on: “One time when she was about to drive to Texas I asked her to take my dog with her. She said: ‘Please don't ask me to do that.' I had to ask why. ‘Driving through the South is tough enough just being black,' she said. ‘You can't find a place to eat or sleep or even go to the bathroom. With a dog it's going to be just impossible.' That hurt me, George; it almost brought me to tears. Mrs. Wright is a college graduate, you know. That was when I realized how important public accommodations are when we're talking about segregation. I know what it is to be looked down on, George, and I sure don't wish it on anyone else.”

“It's good to hear that,” said George.

He knew he was being romanced. Johnson still had hold of his hand and shoulder, was still leaning in a little too close, his dark eyes looking at George with remarkable intensity. George knew what Johnson was doing—but it was working just the same. George felt moved by the story about Zephyr, and believed Johnson when he said he knew what it was to be looked down upon. He felt a surge of admiration and affection for this big, awkward, emotional man who seemed to be on the side of the Negroes.