THE HUMPHREY BUILDUP
Serwer, Arnold
The Humphrey Buildup by ARNOLD SERWER The friends and well-wishers of Hu-bert Horatio Humphrey, who are not as legion as they used to be, are increasingly downcast over the dimming image of the...
...You know the old saying, "Everybody loves a fat man...
...Independent thinking may be okay in a memo, but loyalty is the way to the White House...
...Pause] Where are you sitting, Hubert...
...LBJ: What other activities does this adviser fella suggest to improve your image...
...Forty per cent would like Kennedy to make it to the White House, and forty-six per cent would not...
...HHH: I see your point, Lyndon...
...HHH: Well, I'm eating hearty at all those banquets you send me to...
...HHH: And touch football lessons...
...Lyndon, you're getting much too excited...
...Lyndon, please be calm...
...Conversely, the troops of Bobby Kennedy are upcast at the gains their man seems to be making in the long distance race to succeed Lyndon Baines Johnson (distance: six years, ten months...
...Undoubtedly they have had some conversation about it, which could have run like this: LBJ: I'm worried about you Hubert...
...LBJ: Name me a fat President since William Howard Taft...
...LBJ: What have you got in mind, Hubert...
...Now, Hubert, what are you doing to round out your image...
...LBJ: That's better...
...It also would knock some of the stuffing out of the Secretary, and speed up his footwork...
...President—please remember your operation...
...Close up, you come in real strong...
...HHH: It was a mistake...
...I can't seem to pick you out...
...LBJ: In Texas, it's Poet Lariat...
...Besides, I wouldn't have time for all those things, what with traveling, climbing, hunting, fishing, sailing, flying, cooking— LBJ: And touch football lessons...
...HHH: My telling you we shouldn't bomb North Vietnam...
...Anyway, this adviser has some interesting ideas to improve my standing with the public...
...HHH: Poet Laureate...
...There is a long pause.] LBJ: What was...
...If it's daring enough, it will prove I still can do some bold thinking and speaking—and that you're big enough to let me do it...
...HHH [taking a deep breath]: Now don't get excited, but what if I made a speech, right in Texas, proposing that Congress reform the tax laws to abolish the oil depletion allowance...
...The fact is, this adviser of mine really goes stronger for the action stuff...
...I like a Vice President who backs up his President...
...Lyndon—Mr...
...The cool sailor image can be arranged by signing you on as crewman in the next Bermuda Cup Race—if Bobby doesn't beat you to it...
...I'm doing it with mashed potatoes and Roquefort dressing...
...HHH: Poet Laureate...
...Only twenty-three per cent of the citizens, says the Gallup poll, favor the idea of Hubert ever becoming President...
...That certainly should put over the idea of Hubert Humphrey, the hard-nosed structural steel worker and unstuffed-shirt statesman...
...He says people should get a picture of me in physical action —traveling, climbing, hunting, fishing, sailing, hobbying, gardening, flying, cooking—LBJ: Bobby Kennedy can do all those things, Hubert, and he plays touch football besides...
...We could televise pictures of you in overalls, tossing red hot rivets to Dean Rusk on a construction project...
...What I need is something dramatic to win back the liberal support that Bobby is taking away from me...
...HHH: I guess you're right, Lyndon, You're right, too, about all the reading, studying, thinking, and gazing being a good buildup for Poet Lariat but not for President...
...The Humphrey Buildup by ARNOLD SERWER The friends and well-wishers of Hu-bert Horatio Humphrey, who are not as legion as they used to be, are increasingly downcast over the dimming image of the Vice President...
...HHH: Right over here, Lyndon, against the wall...
...But I'll bet Bobby couldn't mix a seidlitz powder to save his life...
...You know, Hubert, sometimes you can be stubborn, like you were when you said at my strategy meeting a year ago that we shouldn't start bombing North Vietnam...
...One of my advisers wrote me a memo —most of it turned up in Newsweek —that says: "The missing elements of yourself must be put back in the picture...
...He says I suffer, and I quote, "from the flat image of the correctly dressed gentleman...
...People say you're fading into the wallpaper...
...HHH: Lyndon, let him go on the boat ride...
...LBJ: That's fine...
...LBJ: Let's see now, Hubert...
...He says I should "enrich" it with "views of the hard-nosed worker, the cool and steady sailor, the un-stuffed-shirt statesman...
...One respondent, a Texan who was cornered on his ranch along the Per-denales by a Gallup pollster, made a curious remark: "All I will say," he growled, "is that I don't want Senator Fulbright to make it to the White House—not even for dinner...
...HHH: They didn't teach me touch football at pharmacy school...
...LBJ: Lariat...
...Is that better...
...Wait, I'll pull my chair up in front of your desk...
...fifty-eight per cent are opposed...
...Both the President and Humphrey have reason to be troubled over the latter's political slippage...
...HHH: He wants me portrayed as reading, studying, thinking, sitting, gazing, looking— LBJ: For heaven's sake, Hubert, we're trying to run you for President in 1972, not for Poet Lariat...
Vol. 30 • February 1966 • No. 2
