The Presidency: Tapioca & Sympathy

Arrayed in gold pajamas and a brown silk robe, the nation’s most closely watched convalescent leaned back in a green reclining chair and made a rare admission. “Very frankly,” said Lyndon Johnson, “this is a good time to get a little rest. I have been rather tired for some time.”

The President showed it. Almost no official visitors were admitted to his third-floor suite at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., last week. Johnson limited his reading to essential reports such as the CIA’s daily intelligence summary, rarely used the multi-button telephone console at his bedside. “I think he is weaker than anyone thought,” observed White House Press Secretary Bill Moyers. “I think the pace of the last 20 months has accumulated weariness that was not evident until the operation.”

“Keep On Doing.” This was a sharp change of tone from the first three days after the operation that removed his gall bladder and a kidney stone Oct. 8. For that period of time, the President had seemed to be simmering with energy—as patients often do immediately following surgery. The anesthetic had barely worn off when he was signing bills, dictating telegrams, calling relatives with medical bulletins, approving appointments, and largely behaving as if he were still in the oval office.

Summoning in a four-man press pool, Johnson chatted about the amazing productivity of the 89th Congress. The session, he said, reminded him of “an old song that we used to sing in the hills of Texas, ‘Keep on doing what you’re doing to me, because I like what you’re doing to me!'” He admitted that he had been disappointed a few times, but allowed: “You never get everything you want.” On the other hand, he could not resist adding, “If Hubert and I were up there representing the House and the Senate, we would get them together in five minutes.”

The following day, Johnson spent 45 minutes reviewing domestic and foreign problems with Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and a hour with Secretary of State Dean Rusk, who brought him a get-well message from the Soviet leaders and a rundown on the crises in Indonesia and Rhodesia (see THE WORLD). Then the postoperative euphoria started wearing off. Taken off sedation, the President slept fitfully, some nights for as little as two hours! He was restless during the day. “While I was there,” said Moyers, “he spent part of his time in his chair, and he got back on the bed to rest, and he got out of the bed again after he regained some of his strength.”

Hello from Him. At last Johnson’s doctors, as Moyers put it, insisted “that he take every opportunity to rest; that he maintain a very minimum schedule the next few weeks.” As a result, his hard-working staff was able to relax for the first time in months. Moyers, who normally is on call 24 hours a day, even managed to catch a few innings of the last World Series game on TV.

Four days after his operation, the President went off intravenous feeding and began taking such light fare as juices, stewed vegetables and lean meats. Most of his meals were topped off by a longtime favorite—tapioca pudding, which Family Cook Zephyr Wright whipped up at the White House and sent over to Bethesda almost daily. Well-wishers all over the U.S. phoned White House aides with home remedies for easing the President’s discomfort (one suggested artesian well water, another mashed vegetable roots). But nothing cheered the President so much as a picture postcard concocted by his staff. On one side was a photo of his beagle, Him, looking even more mournful than usual; on the other was the message: “Dear Master, You can see that I’m feeling sad because you’re in the hospital. Him.” At one point, Daughter Luci rushed in with the news that her pet hamsters, Boris and Ninotchka, had just produced a litter of eleven.

“I Love the Prez.” Toward week’s end the President began to worry that reports of his slackened pace, sleepless nights and deep fatigue might be alarming the nation. So, wearing yellow pajamas that Muriel Humphrey had embroidered for him, he went up to the hospital’s fifth-floor sun deck—walking part way and riding in a wheelchair the rest—to meet 50 newsmen. He had little to say; he was simply putting himself on display.

At one point he beckoned to Aide Jack Valenti’s daughter, Courtenay Lynda, who will turn two next week. “Besito,” he urged, using the Spanish word for “little kiss,” and she dutifully planted several moist smacks on his cheek. “What do you have to say to the President?” coaxed her father. “I love the Prez,” she said on cue. Lyndon called the little girl over, opened his pajama top to show her the bandages that covered his 12-in. incision, and the rubber tube coiling out to drain off stomach gas. Johnson was in a less mellow mood when Interior Secretary Stewart Udall and Lady Bird showed up beneath his window to plant a 15-ft. willow oak in honor of Johnson’s recovery, then decided to wait until newsmen arrived. The President roared out the window: “You all go ahead and plant that tree so I can get back to sleep!”

Lyndon has been an unexpectedly docile patient so far. “He is following the doctors’ instructions to a T,” marveled Moyers. And he aims to go on doing so. Said the President: “When the pilots tell me not to fly, I don’t fly. When the doctors tell me not to do something, I don’t do it. That’s why I am alive today.” And, said the doctors, Johnson is making a normal recovery. At week’s end his stitches were removed. In all likelihood, he will leave the hospital this week and head for the warming Texas sun. The doctors will try to keep him on a relaxed schedule until about mid-November.