The Apprentice

That’s me in the spotlight.

The night of John F. Kennedy’s funeral — three days following his assassination — Lyndon Johnson met at the State Department with the world leaders who had traveled to Washington to pay their respects.

Although LBJ had been vice-president almost three years, he was not considered a vital part of the Kennedy Administration, and had been excluded from any significant role from the start. That fall, rumors had been circulating that he might be dropped from the ticket in 1964. JFK’s Harvard-educated Best & Brightest regarded Johnson as an embarrassing Texas throwback.

And now he was the most powerful man in the world.

Robert Caro’s narrative of Johnson’s sudden ascension, the politics and rivalries and details he had to master without warning, is highly illuminating.

That photo of Johnson being sworn in on Air Force One? Totally LBJ’s idea, demonstrating the continuity of American government before anyone had a chance to doubt it. Others had recommended waiting for a more formal moment at the White House.

But where LBJ had a famous expertise in domestic politics — as Senate Majority Leader, all bills came through him — he had no grounding in foreign affairs, and in the crush of everything else that needed his attention, no time for the briefest of briefings. He would walk into the evening reception, and subsequent individual meetings with the likes of Charles de Gaulle, cold turkey.

Everyone at the State Department was scared shitless. International diplomacy, particularly during the Cold War, wasn’t something you could just vamp your way through. Precision is required, down to the preposition. Text is just a means to convey subtext.

And that evening, the text was a series of 5×8 cards Johnson was handed just before each greeting. For the Cambodian prime minister:

“Tone — firm, no nonsense, though kindly… President Kennedy had a high regard for Prince Sihanouk; you share that regard. President Kennedy personally investigated the charges of U.S. complicity in the Khmer Serei plots and gave Prince Sihanouk his categorical assurances that they were false… The U.S. respects Cambodia’s desire for neutrality and supports it, but if international guarantees are wanted, the right way to get them is not to begin by continuing to accuse the U.S. of complicity in plots.”

Say Hi, disgorge the talking points, and here’s the next card, Mr. President. After a quick glance at the typically convoluted messaging, Johnson “would work into the conversation points which we had suggested,” Dean Rusk’s executive secretary Benjamin Read would recall with admiration years later.

But that was Cambodia, still years from being recognizable to the American public. De Gaulle, was, well, de Gaulle, living monument, and, from America’s perspective, world-historical asshole — just that morning, he was reported to be doubting America’s commitment to NATO, and complaining that we had a nasty habit of being fashionably late to world wars.

Yet after a few minutes with LBJ — who instinctively knew how to command a moment — de Gaulle was walking back his trash talk, claiming his misgivings had been exaggerated.

LBJ’s performance — three days after the assassination, the evening after John-John saluted his father’s casket — was an unexpected and impressive triumph. “It was done with real skill by him under the maximum of difficulties,” Read remembered. “It was quite a show.”

Lyndon Johnson had risen to the occasion and to the office, and would go on to shepherd and sign some of the most significant social legislation of the twentieth century. And, for whatever reason, we’ve found ourself thinking about his immediate mastery of diplomacy Friday evening.

15 Comments

Hubert: Do you know what a dictatorship is? It’s when people are communists, when they are cold with gray hats and boots with zippers. That’s a dictatorship.

Dolorès: Then what do you call a country with a military leader controlling everything, a secret police, and a single TV channel with every information source controlled by the state?

Hubert: I call that “France,” Dolorès, General De Gaulle’s France!

OSS 117: Lost in Rio

I voted myyyyyyyyy waaaaaaaay…
Regrets, I’ve had a few;
But then again, too many to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without reflection…

Good job Bob.
http://theslot.jezebel.com/sad-these-people-already-regret-voting-for-trump-1789641088

Comes now the news that Trump’s team was planning the Taiwan call for months — but if you read closely, nobody bothered to tell him until after the election, and for all we know, the day before.

In other words: Trump is a puppet of his own government, which is full of people who have a propensity to drive the world off a cliff. To the future!

WSJ, Official Purveyor of Trump Leaks: Bob Dole arranged Taiwan call.

Bob Dole.

I’ll say one thing: They’re scrambling after the fact to make it look respectable.

Okay, another: Great effort was also expended to portray Reagan as in charge. Except that moment when Al Haig was.

NYT: Dole arranged the call — and some GOP platform items — as a paid lobbyist for Taiwan. All for the low, low price of $140,000.

ADD: Gephardt and Daschle also on retainer, because cashing in on public service is bipartisan.

@nojo: I attended a holiday party there last year. $140,000 is probably their annual cocktail napkin budget.

@mellbell: Yeah, that’s just summer/fall. There’s a years-long monthly five-figure retainer as well.

@SanFranLefty:

They open his casket every now and then, push a Viagra into his mouth and he rises like Nosferatu. Then, it’s off to do some lobbying.

@ManchuCandidate:

To be fair, most of those nutjobs seem to regret voting for Trump because they wanted him to be even crazier than he is. However, all I can do is shake my head when I read the tweet from the woman who’s worried that Trump might not pursue policies promoting gender pay equality. I mean… WTF, lady?

@Serolf Divad:
True.

Her and Bob make me laugh with sad pathetic schadenfreude.

@Serolf Divad: I’m sure the incoming RepubliKKKan party dictatorship will get right on that… right after reinstating slavery.

They don’t wanna return to the 1950s, they wanna catapult us back to the 1850s.

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