The Three LBJs
MEYER, KARL E.
WASHINGTON U.S.A. The Three LBJs By Karl E. Meyer In his first four months, Washington has come to know three LBJs-Johnson the chief legislator, Johnson the diplomatist, and Johnson the...
...They see the Alliance for Progress turning into a holding operation, with the U.S...
...his sensitivity to Congress comes close to a surrender of leadership...
...He was manifestly annoyed with the Latins over an incident that had occurred the day before, in which OAS sources announced that Panama and the United States had reached an accord on resuming relations...
...That day he addressed the Organition of American States (OAS) on the occasion of the anniversary of the Alliance for Progress...
...1 dancer by Arthur Murray...
...In a sense, the U.S...
...These same gifts do not serve Johnson quite so well in foreign affairs...
...LBJ has been designated America's No...
...His speech had been billed as a momentous declaration...
...As Dr...
...Certainly the President's foreignaid message reinforced this appraisal...
...his gift for simple statement seems to bend into rigid conventionalism...
...But, under Johnson, it would be Gaullism without grandeur...
...In this respect, Johnson is like a Kennedy in reverse...
...In turning off the lights at the White House, President Johnson has signaled the end of a brief era in more ways than one...
...In addition, during the same period, the deterioration of the terms of trade cost Latin America $10.1 billion-meaning that the region was a net loser to the tune of $500 million...
...The total requested from Congress, $3.4 billion, was the lowest figure since the program was initiated...
...Yet even when he is most shameless in his appeal to sentiment or to the commonplace, the President, in personal demeanor, redeems the obvious with a calm dignity...
...They tend to believe published reports that Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Mann, the President's Latin American chief, feels U.S...
...But the qualities which make the President a first-rate chief legislator -aggressiveness, sensitivity to the mood of Congress, a certain Populist directness of rhetoric-all militate against his success as a diplomat...
...JFK fascinated and exasperated intellectuals...
...Johnson, with an unabashed fondness for patriotic cliché, addresses the heart in talking about the shame of lingering poverty "in this land we all love...
...Kennedy, with his subtlety and feel for nuance, his weakness for jargon words like "structural unemployment," spoke to the head...
...The third LBJ-the exemplar of style-is returning to the old frontier...
...France is now spending about 2 per cent of its GNP on aid...
...his presidential prose, one Kennedy aide has said, is the worst since Harding...
...Latin Americans are aware of the cruel trap of deteriorating terms of trade...
...Here his energy seems to lapse into an agitated impatience...
...Proposals like this find a cool response in Washington, where the mood is one of retrenchment, don'trock-the-boat diplomacy, and inward-looking economics...
...The White House has gone from Camelot to Johnson City, runs a current wisecrack, and that is about as far as one can go...
...Even his talent for the normal political amenities appears to desert him, especially in dealing with Latin America...
...If this much is approved (and Congress will probably pare the amount down), it will mean that the U.S...
...Between 1950-61, there was a total inflow into Latin America of $23 billion in private and public capital...
...commitment kept to a minimum...
...At his best, he gives an air of uncontestable fairness and reasonableness to proposals that only a few years ago were radical novelties...
...The Three LBJs By Karl E. Meyer In his first four months, Washington has come to know three LBJs-Johnson the chief legislator, Johnson the diplomatist, and Johnson the exemplar of a national style...
...Johnson had charged into the OAS to make his speech and bolted out immediately afterward...
...From this must be subtracted $13.4 billion in interest, profits and dividends that flowed out of the region...
...What is needed, they argue, are compensatory payments to buttress commodity prices if outside aid is to stimulate meaningful development...
...Latin Americans are fearful that in his Hemisphere policies Johnson is reverting to the parochial nationalism of decades past...
...Monday, March 16, for example, proved an unmitigated disaster for Johnson in Hemispheric relations...
...hostility to Right-wing dictators has been a mistake...
...At the same time, there is little inclination in Washington to consider radical new approaches to the problems of world trade...
...will spend one-half of 1 per cent of its Gross National Product for foreign aid...
...Raul Prebisch, who compiled these figures, and other economists contend, present levels of outside public and private investment only enable Latin America to stand still...
...it turned out to be a dreary recitation of homilies, all presented in the disjointed, onesentence paragraphs that the President favors...
...seems to be drifting in a Gaullist direction of heightened nationalism...
Vol. 47 • March 1964 • No. 7
