On Television

...ON TELEVISION Since the medium is the message, I did not feel guilty during the President's recent State of the Union speech about concentrating on his tv style rather than his arguments Surely, no politician has ever projected his personality more effectively on television than President Lyndon Barnes Johnson He makes a much better impression than any of his predecessors He has the gift of gab, compared to Calvin Coohdge He is more photogenic than William Howard Taft And his speech is more pleasing to the ear than was the squeaky adenoidal voice of Abraham Lincoln He also sounds a lot less like the politician than Lincoln did Today we often torget that President Lincoln was the candidate of the Chicago Tribune and was even more popular with the busmess interests than President Johnson is While Lincoln was making a name for himself in the civil rights field, his Administration was quietly giving away much of the nation's natural resources to the railroad barons Set in their ways, politicians have never fully understood the potential of the television medium In the beginning, they used it as though it were radio Men stood m front of microphones and delivered speeches as sonorously as possible, hoping the pancake make-up would conceal their double chins I remember reading a John Crosby column in the old By Marvin Kitman The Public Image New York Herald-Tribune which named Thomas E Dewey as the first office-seeker to stumble upon the proper way to use television "Dewey threw away the script," Crosby wrote at the time ot the New York gubernatorial election in 1950 "He answered questions, as it were, from the floor—the floor being a dozen street corners all over the state of New York He spoke extemporaneously, he moved from spot to spot, picking up state reports and documents, he sat on the edge of his desk, he scratched his head " What television did for Dewey was humanize him It gave the people a chance to see what he was really like—which may be the reason for his subsequent decline in politics President Kennedy used television in a limited way He showed the people only his good side In contrast, Johnson will go down in history as the first politician to use television to show us all his sides You can't expect any more from the medium than that "When you talk to him m person," explamed a former resident of the White House with whom I discussed the President's tv presence, "he's a likeable person When he walks out of the room and goes on camera something happens to him He becomes a sanctimonious, pious Png " That's the good side of him All men have mean streaks, which usually only their wives get to see But Lyndon Johnson shows his right on television No credibility gap here An unforgettable example of this facet of his personality came through last December 19 in a program entided, A Conversation With the President The show started out like a fireside chat, with President Johnson playing the role of FDR, minus the cigarette holder As he explained his homilies for solving the cities' problems, Frank Reynolds, the clean-cut abc White House correspondent, interrupted "Mr President In the ghettos I think they'd say that's just talk White man's talk What's your reaction to that7" The President wheeled slowly in his rocking chair and gave Reynolds the coldest stare m the history of television journalism Undaunted, Reynolds pressed Johnson on what he was really going to do The President then asked in reply "What would you do, Frank9" Had the President asked that question of Walter Lippmann or James Reston, he would have gotten recitations from their latest columns, and the country would have been better off Lacking the proper background, Reynolds would have been wise merely to quote the words of President Eisenhower, who first said, "Well, I wouldn't know about that" Or even, "I'll have a statement on that later" Instead, he weakly msisted the television audience was more interested in hearing not Reynolds' proposals but the President's Having skewered the reporter, the President gave him two or three turns, which every journalist in America felt "What is your answer, though7" he persevered, as Reynolds hemmed and hawed "What's your solution...

...Frank7 You're not gomg to answer now, you're not going to give us your recommendations, your thoughts7" Finally Reynolds gave his program, which turned out to be a collection of Great Society platitudes "That s what we're doing," the President triumphed "And we accept your recommendations, and we are going to carry them out " Frank Reynolds will never be the same But I have a feelmg that the majority of the non-working press in the country hked the way Lyndon Johnson handled the press Everybody knows the President has bad manners and it's a comfort to see them displayed so gracefully on television One need only imagine Richard Nixon under the pressures of a stress interview to appreciate the grandeur of President Johnson's style m the medium And after seeing the master several tunes on tv m recent months, I found watching the Republicans in their rebuttal to his State of the Union message like watching a college debating team m action This is not to say the Republicans have not learned from past mistakes in the medium Their make-up men, for example, did a masterful job on the debaters who appeared on The State of the Union A Republican View (cbs, January 23) There wasn't a trace of five o'clock shadow on Representative May of Washington as she lashed out at the Johnson Administration's failure to hold the line on consumer prices The Congresswoman was only one of 17 flawlessly made-up Republican leaders who went before the people on this major political broadcast—major because it revealed a significant shift in Republican strategy Instead of discussing mere issues, the Republicans this year will be running on then personalities With the titular leader of the showbiz wing of the party, Senator George Murphy of California, as host, the Republicans ran the debate like a variety show Rather than rely on the grand old men of the party to answer LBJ, Murphy tried out a number of untested new acts The party seemed to be taking the pulse of the nation to see which type will make the biggest hit in this fall's elections First came the young type, Representative William A Steiger ot Wisconsin, famous in the House for being only 29 years old "No beatnik he," Murphy noted, introducing the rather colorless man who struck me as a young fogey Next they needed a photogenic type, which led to the tv debut as a political leader of Representative Robert Mathias of California Political observers agree that Bob Mathias is probably the best athlete in Congress The most frequently asked question in the last Congressional session, according to usually reliable informed sources, was "Which one is Bob Mathias7" The boys in the House Press Gallery told visitors, "Just look for the one with the muscles and the comb " The former Olympic track star had obviously been directed to hide his comb during his four-muiute turn on camera 'You know I have faced some high hurdles in my day," he said in a vague openmg illusion to his past Then Representative Mathias leaped to the defense of the poor American farmer, proving he will be a double threat Representative Charlotte Reid "from the great state of Illinois" was on the show as a mother type She warned, "We must be certain the rifles our sons cairy in battle do not jam" And possibly because Murphy felt we needed to hear somebody named Poff, he gave us next Representative Richard Poff "of the great state of Virginia " In an accent that made LBJ sound like a damn Yankee, Representative Poff, a symbol of the emerging Republican South, went on to proclaim, Rape is commonplace m our streets " That sounded like old-fashioned campaign oratory The real hit of George's Show, however, was Representative Gerald Ford Taking President Johnson's metaphor about the "great ship," Ford sailed it right out of the old ball park Ford's oratory deserves to be memorized by every American schoolboy Most children probably missed it because the program didn't go on the air until past their bedtime, so I am taking the liberty of jotting down his concluding paragraphs "His ship of state is wallowing in a storm-tossed sea, drifting towards the rocks of domestic disaster beaten by the waves of a world-wide fiscal crisis The captain should return to the bridge "We need a captam who will seize the helm, call up full power, break out new charts, hold our course steadfast, and bring us through the storm "We need a captam who inspires his crew to heroic endeavor We need a captain with courage to clear the deck and jetuson the deadweights, a captain who learned his seamanship beyond the Potomac "It's no time to abandon ship It's time for all hands to man their action stations Let's not give up the ship America has weathered many terrible storms, rescued many a weaker vessel It will do it again Representative Ford was sent below decks after moppmg up the Democrats, but was called back by host Murphy to give viewers "a 30-second wrap-up on the Republican party's position Unfortunately, cbs cut him off in mid-sentence to make way for its next program That left us at sea without a paddle, so to speak...