"The conception Johnson has brought to his office and American democracy is profoundly mistaken and extremely dangerous," continued the professor.  "He wants consensus on his policies in detail and regards dissent as a failure of the duties which a citizen owes his country.  He puts dissenters into the sphere of traitors and unreliable people."

'He Wants to be Loved'

    Robert B. Novak, another member of the Forum panel and a nationally syndicated columnist, amplified Prof. Morganthau's remarks by adding that Johnson "not only wants to be obeyed, he wants to be loved.  He is a man who could not in the Senate and still cannot in the White House 'take it' when the going gets rough.  He demands a consensus not out of a design for power but as a personality trait -- whenever he is crossed, he goes deeper and deeper into a hole and sulks."

    A week before Henry Cabot Lodge resigned as ambassador to Vietnam, Johnson responded to a question at a news conference that he "wasn't looking for a successor for Lodge."  Then, a week later when Lodge unexpectedly resigned, Johnson immediately announced that Ellsworth Bunker would be the new ambassador.

    A White House official purported to explain the discrepancy by blithely explaining that "it was true the President wasn't 'looking' for a successor to Lodge last week since he had already found a successor by that time."  (A tidy distinction, which would be heartily approved by medieval philosophers.)

Contemporary of Rutherford Hayes

    "There have been other presidents who have lied and lied often," Novak continued, "Ike about the U-2 affair and Kennedy about the Bay of Pigs.  But Johnson has a special quality of deviousness, of hiding the cards from the rest of the players.

    "It worked well in the Senate, but not in the presidency.  He's acting as if he was a contemporary of Rutherford B. Hayes, not as an attractive personality in the telegenic age."

    1) Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2) 1964 Tax Cut, 3) Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, 4) Medicare, 5)  Elementary and Secondary School Education Act, 6) Head Start, 7) Demonstration Cities Act, 8) Rent Supplements, 9) Teacher Corps, 10) Consular Treaty with Russia, 11) An administrative revolution modeled after the techniques of the Defense Department, 12) President during the longest period of economic prosperity this country has ever known.

Impressive Accomplishments

    While pointing out that these were impressive accomplishments, the outspoken professor added that there were also "some negative items on the balance sheet."  He asserted that the United States military participation in Vietnam has turned out to be a "serious mistake," although admitting that "I did not recognize this at the time" and also that the "global consequences of a pullout at this time would be bad."

    Prof. Yarmolinsky also indicated that Johnson has "failed as a teacher," a role of the presidency which the panelist believed was extremely important.  He asserted that LBJ has lost the support of the young people, the intellectuals, labor, big cities, minority groups, and the "uncommitted mass of the third world."

    After pointing out that a teacher should be able to "confess ignorance" and constantly demonstrate "what needs to be done" (instead of lauding past accomplishments), the professor concluded that "the Administration lacks the capacity to generate understanding which I regard as a more valuable goal than consensus."

Support Principles

    All the panelists seemed to support in principle Prof. Morganthau's opening statement that "everything which we admire or detest in the Johnson Administration depends on its success or failure.  If he fails, what we admire will be forgotten.  If he succeeds, what we detest will be forgotten."

    But the theorist, in the quiet but assertive tones of a sage, went on to declare that there is "another standard" by which Presidents may be judged.  "Even if Lincoln had failed in the War," Morganthau declared, "Posterity would still look upon him as a great man.  There is an intrinsic greatness in some presidents which transcends success or failure."

Lacks Intrinsic Greatness

    The persistent critic of Johnson made it clear in the remarks which followed that he believes Johnson lacks this certain "intrinsic greatness."

    Novak, who travels extensively throughout the country to sample grass roots opinion, stated that "almost any moderate Republican would carry 35 to 40 states if a Presidential election were held tomorrow.  I don't see how even winning the Vietnam War can change this result in '68."