The Word from Washington
The Word from Washington Nothing in the torrent of words that have been written, broadcast, and televised out of Washington on the Johnson Administration's Credibility Gap tells the story so...
...Moyers, it was noted, was the only "no man" among the President's aides—the only one who could disagree with the boss and get away with it...
...Alert and vigorous at seventy-seven—despite the sly innuendoes of those in the Administration who piously regret that he is "getting old"—the dean of columnists still has much to tell us about America and its responsibilities...
...More than any other of the President's close aides, he was able to keep in touch with the real world beyond the White House walls...
...Q. For the sake of clarification, some of the military targets we have hit in the past have been in what might be described as the suburbs of Hanoi...
...A. These targets have been identified in announcements which are customarily made in Saigon, and I don't know what they are specifically...
...I just want to know since there is a charge or an allegation by a number of different news agencies on the Communist side...
...The government, with its secular concern for safety, has destroyed our faith...
...Cronyism is the curse of journalism," he said...
...One story has it that Moyers was saying mealtime grace at the LBJ ranch one day...
...We have tried to restore our lost devotion by poring over the full-color advertisements in the slick magazines, but to no avail...
...bomb damage to civilian areas in the vicinity of Hanoi...
...A. We have not...
...And I am not trying to be facetious at all here...
...I said I have no confirming information on those charges...
...The Hierarchs of the industry reported that they would be unable to meet some of the Federal government's modest proposals for safety standards in 1968 models...
...Q. Well, "suburbs" is a very general kind of term...
...After many years, I have reached the firm conclusion that it is impossible for an objective newspaperman to be a friend of a President...
...Answer...
...And it was noted that as White House press secretary, Moyers was the most candid spokesman for an Administration increasingly haunted by the credibility gap...
...3) What member spent eighty-four days of an eighty-eight day recess on the Congressional payroll investigating matters in his home district (including Thanksgiving and Christmas) while collecting per diem allowance...
...More significantly, Moyers was able to take a stance short of zealotry toward the Administration's adventure in Vietnam...
...Q. Well, could these militarily associated targets be located within the city limits of Hanoi...
...Cronyism is a sure sign that something is wrong and that the public is not getting the whole journalistic truth...
...If the Capital has had a conscience in recent years, it has resided in the stucco house at 3525 Woodley Road where Lippmann and his wife have made their home for two decades...
...If President Johnson recognizes and appreciates the qualities—even if modestly displayed—that set Moyers apart from his colleagues, there has been no sign of it from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...
...Q. That is a question I would direct at you because the—I was just asking...
...Their decision to move to New York leaves a vacuum that cannot be filled...
...No new no-men for Lyndon Johnson are in sight...
...The Word from Washington Nothing in the torrent of words that have been written, broadcast, and televised out of Washington on the Johnson Administration's Credibility Gap tells the story so eloquently as the agony of State Department Press Officer Robert J. McCloskey...
...Capitol Hill, which few Americans fancy as the Mount Sinai of national morality, has now dealt with one of its errant sons—Adam Clayton Powell...
...Though it has been denied—by Moyers himself, among others —there is reason to believe that he sought a policy-making position and was rebuffed by the President...
...The creators of the Dodge Rebellion, the Mustang Pledge, and countless other engaging rites said they could not master the mystery of engaging seats and seatbelts more firmly to their vehicles...
...What do you mean by Hanoi...
...His deep concern about our future is unmatched by men half his age...
...Fortunately, Lippmann will continue to write his semi-weekly commentary on national and world affairs...
...What are you saying...
...and they are militarily associated targets...
...While others followed Jack Valenti's lead in panegyric references to the President, Moyers maintained at least a modicum of detachment...
...I don't know what one—how one defines what the city limits are...
...Q. I would like to know from the point of view of policy whether you are in a position to answer the question, "Have we bombed Hanoi...
...A. I don't know what the city limits are...
...I stuck it out here through the McCarthy period...
...A. I just can't answer that...
...A. It is not American policy to bomb other than the targets which we have talked about here in the past and at Defense, and at the White House, and in Saigon...
...His candor, even privately, has been manifested only when it suited the President's purposes...
...The remarkable exchange that ensued was reported in the most fragmentary way by most major news media...
...The miracle-workers who have managed to combine in one charmed chariot such attributes as interior roominess and exterior compactness said reduction of glare from reflecting surfaces was beyond their skill...
...The wizards who have furnished cars with telephones, TV sets, and tape recorders said they could not equip them with recessed hardware that would provide protection in the event of a collision...
...Our new year opened, therefore, on a note of shattering disappointment...
...All this is true, though not quite so true, we think, as some of the comments of Washington observers indicated...
...On occasion he has displayed all of the petty vin-dictiveness that is too often the Administration's hallmark—as he did, for example, when Professor Eric Goldman resigned as Johnson's staff intellectual...
...He recalls, however, that he visited the White House frequently in the months following President Kennedy's assassination, "but I no longer do...
...POTOMACUS...
...I am informed that new targets have not been authorized...
...As we watched the Powell morality play unfold we were struck by inspiration...
...jo jojbS -TJS3AUI piip 'JBJ30UI3Q OiqQ 'SABJJ SuAeM, 3Ap-ElU3S3jd3^ ( j ) : SJSMSUy The expectation that next year's model will be better, as well as the acknowledgement that this year's model is superb, have long been articles of faith with us...
...Is that what you mean...
...If it has its shortcomings as a mode of transportation—well, every faith demands some sacrifices of its true believers...
...Lippmann denies that disenchantment with the President is driving him from Washington...
...What follows are some memorable excerpts: Q. Does it remain American policy not to bomb Hanoi...
...4) What member charged the taxpayers $6,082 for a thirty-nine day around-the-world trip, ostensibly to review U.S...
...What the lawmakers needed as they weighed Powell's transgressions was a handy, vest-pocket "pony" which we hereby dedicate to the House of Representatives: (1) What member of Congress toured Europe at public expense with the Senate restaurant's head waiter...
...The coterie of correspondents, columnists, and commentators usually identified as "Washington observers" began discovering the virtues of Bill D. Moyers as soon as he announced his resignation from the White House staff...
...I wasn't speaking to you, sir," the press secretary is said to have replied...
...I don't know how they are defined...
...Some are close and some are farther away...
...Answer...
...While others on the staff shunned mention of the junior Senator from New York, Moyers remained on cordial terms with Robert Kennedy...
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...Recent appointments to the White House staff have borne the Marvin Watson stamp...
...McCloskey, a low-keyed and competent government spokesman, met the press in his Foggy Bottom briefing room in mid-December to comment on reports by North Vietnamese government spokesmen and Western newsmen of U.S...
...2) What member placed his wife and son on the payroll...
...Answer...
...Moyers, able and ambitious, has been a prudent no-man and a cautious liberal...
...We would have slept a little better, to borrow Valenti's phrase, if Moyers rather than Walt W. Rostow had fallen heir to McGeorge Bundy's White House job...
...Answer...
...the President asked...
...Answer...
...Still learning and teaching in his eighth decade, Lippmann leaves Washington wtih some characteristically sound advice for his junior colleagues in the press corps...
...As good Americans, we yield to no man in our reverence for the Automobile and in our admiration for the high priests in Detroit who fashion out of chrome and steel that splendid symbol of sexual potency, family comfort, and national prosperity...
...A. I am aware of the charges...
...And the pity of it is, he never needed them more...
...military installations...
...Washington will not be the same without Walter Lippmann...
...A. I took the question to mean that these are civilian targets or population centers, people and the rest, which one generally associates when talking about a city...
...5) What Congressman bolted the Democratic Party to suit his political purposes...
...A. I may live in one here, and you may live in another, and they may be distances apart...
...A. That's possible...
...I don't know how far the suburbs extend...
...We don't see, frankly, how the National Traffic Safety Agency squares with the First Amendment's injunction against state meddling in religious matters...
...Q. How can you say you don't know anything about the city limits, where they are, and yet you say we have not bombed Hanoi...
...And what I have said is that so far as I am aware the policy is," so far as targets are concerned, directed against military and militarily associated targets...
...Q. When you say "as far as I am aware no new targets have been struck or authorized," do you mean that none of this bombing in the last forty-eight hours has been on targets that have not been previously hit...
...It was also pointed out that Moyers was the leader of the "liberal wing" within the Administration, and that his departure would signal the full ascendancy of such Texas conservatives as Marvin Watson...
...Q. But you cannot be definitive as to whether any of these targets are inside the city limits of Hanoi...
...I wouldn't give him that satisfaction," he says...
...Nonetheless, Moyers' resignation is a loss to the President and to the public, and leaves a vacancy that will be hard to fill...
Vol. 31 • February 1967 • No. 2
