President Watching

From What Do You Say to That?” by Walt Bodine
Westport Publishers, 1988
Page 150 and following

Kansas City has always been a great place for president watching. One big factor, of course, is because we had a president in residence so often in the Truman years and a president in retirement when the Trumans came home. Another reason is that our mid-country location, excellent communications setup, and time zone make Kansas City a good place for presidents to make speeches, and almost the obligatory place to address farm problems.

My brushes with various presidents have resulted in a sprained ankle, a distrust of the media, and an insight into how insignificant a vice president feels. If you remember the Lyndon Johnson years, you may recall that Johnson was famous for putting the arm on people. I personally experienced this.

One day, not long after Johnson was nominated for vice president, I had an unexpected encounter with him. At that time, I, along with a very talented woman named Jean Glenn, did a daily talk show that originated from a downtown restaurant of blessed memory, Bretton's. Our guest that day was a local civic leader, Nathan Stark. About ten minutes before airtime there was a stir in the restaurant. Former President Truman had just come in with Senator Lyndon Johnson.

That was too great a temptation for me. I asked Stark if he would step aside for part of his time as a guest on the show if I could get Johnson on the air. He agreed and I invited Johnson to join us.

When asked, Johnson immediately turned us down saying he was a guest of President Truman. But Truman said, "Lyndon, you're running for vice president of the United States. When someone wants you to talk into a microphone, you ought to do it. We'll wait for you."

Once he was at our table and on the air, Johnson tried to flatter us and get rid of us. He said that it was always wonderful to be on ... and then he glanced at the call letters on the side of the microphone and said WDAF. I tried to start a line of questioning about the campaign. But Lyndon was waxing and saying, "I always improve myself when I come here to Jackson County.

I then began to question him about the book, Advise and Consent, which was a best-seller at the time. The book had a thinly veiled commentary on current Washington happenings and featured a wheeling, dealing majority leader of the senate who was clearly Lyndon B. Johnson.

After my first question, Johnson quit smiling and said, "Well, that's a fiction book you're talking about."

But I pursued and said that the characters in the book seemed very much like real figures in Washington, including Johnson.

"Mr. Bodine, Mr. Allen Drury who wrote that book is a good friend of mine and I hope everybody will read his book because it's about Washington."

I tried to question him some more and said, "Well, if it is a good book about Washington, isn't it telling the truth?"

That is when it happened. Johnson's huge hand came down on my forearm and he squeezed my arm hard and held it while he said, "Mr. Bodine, I think we have covered that subject, and it says right in the front of the book that it is fiction and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental."

At that point, fearing a fracture, I let the matter drop.

I saw Johnson another time or two during that campaign. Once he looked at me, as we sat waiting for the beginning of a news conference and his expression seemed to say, "I don't know when I saw you before, but I don't think I liked it."

During the Johnson years, whenever I read about the president putting the arm on someone, I had a new appreciation for the term.

Whoever described Johnson as bigger-than-life was right on the mark. Even his very cuff links seemed to be outsize. His formidable physical size, along with his high levels of ego and energy, could impact almost any observer.

But perhaps the man who felt that dominating presence most often, and most acutely, was Hubert Humphrey, Johnson's vice president. The poignancy of Humphrey as a sensitive, dedicated man who tried to do his best and suffered more than a few indignities along the way was apparent to me in a little tableau that took place on the air strip at the downtown airport. The Medicare law had just been passed, something former President Truman worked to bring to reality for many years.

Johnson, who had a genuine affection for Truman, decided to go to Independence and sign the bill into law with Mr. Truman looking on. Another person looking on was Vice President Hubert Humphrey, but he was pushed into the background while the cameras and the audience centered their attentions on the past and present presidents.

An hour later, the presidential motorcade, including news cars, arrived back at the downtown airport where the two jets were waiting-the impressive Air Force One and, off to the side, the Vice President's plane, Air Force Two.

Reporters, well wishers, and in our midst, Mr. Humphrey, watched as Johnson walked up the portable ramp stairs to the plane door. He turned and waved with that massive hand, and then, to the sound of applause, went inside. The jet engines began to roar and the Air Force One did a 180-degree turn right before us. As it did, it blew sand and gravel forcefully into our faces and we ran for shelter.

I ran under the portable stairs that had just been pulled away from Air Force One, and another guy darted under them beside me. The roar and the flying gravel continued and we huddled there until it let up. When it did, I looked at the man beside me.

It was Hubert Humphrey. He did not say a word, but the look of combined disgust and resignation on his face was one I will always remember.

It's strange how selective our admiration is. Shaking hands with a president is something people remember for a lifetime and tell their kids and grandchildren about. But the man who is just once removed, the man who is one heartbeat away, and who in the primaries was a full-fledged presidential contender, is somehow nothing special as far as handshakes go.

My own memory of presidents in Kansas City goes back all the way to my teenage years. In 1936, I was rooting for President Roosevelt and was outraged at the press that seemed to be lined up almost universally against him. Roosevelt came to town and I was in the enormous crowd that filled and overflowed the arena of Municipal Auditorium. I was astounded at how the Roosevelt story- the story of a president in town and talking to a giant crowd-was downplayed in the Kansas City Star to page 2, when a speech made by the Star's presidential choice, Alf Landon, somewhere in New England was given front page coverage.

When I hear old-timers griping that the Star is not what it used to be, I am grateful. Although it is not nearly as political a newspaper as it once was, the division between the news stories and editorial columns is not perfect. However, because my background is in TV and radio, I don't have a lot of room to talk.

Encounters with two other presidents still stick in my mind. One was with Richard Nixon, who one day had a whim in Kansas City that cost me a sprained ankle and a week on crutches. I was covering Nixon's arrival at the west door of the Hotel Muehlebach on Wyandotte Street. A crowd of a couple hundred people were milling around and hoping to catch a glimpse of a president. Almost on schedule, we began to hear the throaty roar of a dozen police motorcycles, a sure sign that the presidential motorcade was approaching. The presidential limousine came down Twelfth Street from the west, swung right, and stopped in front of the hotel door.

And that is where the whim came in. Nixon got out of the street-side door of the limousine, looked across the former Allis Park, and decided to stride across and walk in the park to meet the people.

I was just across the street, right in his path, so I fell in step with him, a few feet removed. Allis Park in those days was not the beautiful Allis Plaza we enjoy today. In fact, bums slept on the benches and bottles and beer cans abounded in the park. Nixon saw he was making a mistake. As calmly as he walked across the street toward the park, he turned to start back to the hotel. The Secret Service, who had been confused by all of this, arrived on the scene at that moment, and one agent was so eager to cover the boo-boo that he shoved people aside, me among them. I went down for the count on the curb and twisted my ankle as I went.

Worst of all, I had gotten the opportunity as a reporter to ask the president a question and I missed it completely. Who expects to have the chance to get a president aside, even if only for a minute or two? For that matter, who expects to suffer from a twisted ankle because a secret service agent got pushy? He should have been more alert in the first place.

Another Nixon visit remains vividly in mind. For some reason, Richard Nixon decided to donate the White House piano - the one Margaret Truman used to play - to the Truman Library. Nixon came in person to make the presentation even though he knew Truman could not abide him. I guess he couldn't abide him, because Truman once described Nixon in this quote: "I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between the truth and a lie."

The day that the presentation of the piano was made told me a lot about both men. Mr. Truman demonstrated once again the respect he had for the office of the presidency. Although he still held the same negative feeling about Nixon, the man, Truman received Nixon, the president, graciously and endured the day in tight-lipped self- control.

Nixon, on the other hand, managed to bring a note of gross insensitivity to the event. With news cameras grinding, Nixon sat down at the piano and played a song for Mr. Truman. I presume that Nixon was the only person in the country who had never heard that Mr. Truman didn't like the "Missouri Waltz," because that is what he played. While Harry and Bess just stood behind him, trying to get through the moment, the awkwardness was clear to everyone but Nixon.

But of all the Nixon visits, the one I remember best was an occasion when the president and his staff were trying something new in Kansas City. Nixon had long since decided that the Washington press corps was a jaded lot and that the press was against him at every turn. So what would happen if the administration tried getting its story to the public in such a way that it circumvented the smart-ass Washington types?

To do this, the administration launched what it hoped would be the first of a series of regional news media briefings. The first was held in Kansas City and news people from eight states were invited to attend. Although many of the news people were no doubt pleased to get a White House invitation and to be briefed by the president himself, others saw it as a sort of insult. With the latter group, the theory was that Nixon, being unable to outsmart the old hands of the Washington press corps, had picked us as a more gullible lot.

The Nixon lack of taste showed up from the beginning. The event was scheduled in a basement meeting room of the downtown Holiday Inn, rather than in any of larger hotels that had facilities more appropriate to such an event.

Nixon's taste for royal trappings (remember the funny uniforms of the White House guards?) was also on display. The only official adornment you usually see at a presidential briefing is the presidential seal placed on the front of the speaker's podium. The seal was there, all right, but, in addition, a red carpet was placed at the door where Nixon would enter and lead diagonally to the podium.

A swath had been cut through the chairs to allow for the diagonal entry. God forbid that the president would have to enter the room as anybody else and walk down the aisle and around a few chairs to reach the speaker's dais!

We were jammed into the room tightly, elbow to elbow, and waited for the president to appear. The room was hot and stuffy. I wondered if the briefing would be worthwhile. In time, we rose on a signal and Nixon walked on his red carpet.

The briefing was underway. The president had a lot to say. He went on and on. I was in the third row on the left side. Nixon is a public speaker who likes to pick out a few faces or two in the audience-one to the right, one in the middle, and one on the left-and rotate among them, giving him a sweep of the whole audience. Lots of speakers, me included, do that.

After the novelty that I was in a room listening to the president began to wear off and the reality of the hot room and uncomfortable seating began to take hold, I found myself wishing the briefing would end. At this point, Nixon had shifted audience targets and when he came around to the left side of the room, he looked straight at me each time. And I was getting very drowsy- so much so that I dozed off.

Snapping into wakefulness, I found the president of the United States looking directly at me, with a slightly perturbed expression. I could imagine him thinking about what nerve it took for a rustic, country reporter to fall asleep while being lectured by the president of the United States. I stayed awake for the rest of the briefing.

Two other presidential encounters I had were with John F. Kennedy, both before and after his election. At one time, while he was campaigning, Senator Kennedy came to Kansas City to woo the Kansas-side voters. He had a news conference at the Town House Hotel in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. About a half-dozen reporters attended. Kennedy sat in a rocking chair; the session was more like a long chat than a news conference. The only difference was that some of us had deadlines, including a reporter from United Press International, Dave Ostreicher. He excused himself and went to a phone in the far corner of the room to telephone his story to the UPI office.

What made this occasion fascinating was that, although Kennedy continued to talk to us, he obviously had one ear cocked toward Ostreicher. All of a sudden the senator broke out of his conversation with us, turned in his chair, and called out, "Mr. Ostreicher!"

Dave, looking startled, told his New York office to hold for a minute.

"Mr. Ostreicher, do you think that lead is fair?"

Ostreicher, who had just started to dictate his story, asked Kennedy what he meant.

Kennedy said, "Well, is it fair to say Senator John F. Kennedy, the Catholic candidate for president? I am not running as a Catholic. I'm running as a Democratic candidate."

Ostreicher acknowledged the point and changed his lead. We knew then that we were dealing with an unusual politician who possessed more than a little charm. It takes charm to get a reporter to agree to change a lead, especially if a group of his peers are looking on.

Prior to the Democratic convention in 1960, former President Truman had been strong in his support of Lyndon Johnson for the presidency. Truman had little good to say about Kennedy, and when Truman spoke ill of a Democrat, he made big headlines.

But when the convention was over, John F. Kennedy was the standard bearer of Truman's beloved Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson was the vice presidential candidate.

So it was a major news event when Senator Kennedy paid a post-convention call to Truman in the presidential suite at the Hotel Muehlebach. In the news conference after the visit, president Truman acted tough with the reporters who wanted to rehash Truman's earlier comments on Kennedy. Truman swept them aside with one sentence. "Senator Kennedy is the nominee of the Democratic Party and I support him and that is all there is to it," he said, adding, "Now what are you going to do about that?"

That comment was followed by a moment I will never forget. Several of us were walking with Kennedy toward the west door of the Muehlebach. A few short flights of steps lead to the street. One side of the stairs was roped off to contain the crowd waiting to see Senator Kennedy. As he started up the stairs, most people were waving or cheering, but suddenly a hand shot out of the crowd and grabbed Kennedy's arm, almost throwing him off balance.

The woman who had grabbed him so rudely said, "Senator Kennedy, we are from Dallas. You must come and see us sometime." That moment came back to me with a chill on that awful November day when the young president was shot and killed in Dallas.

As I think back over all the presidents I have had a chance to watch in Kansas City, I realize how very different all these men are from each other.

No such thing as a presidential type exists, although we insist that a candidate for president must have a quality that we call presidential. After the political debates between presidential candidates every four years, one of the big questions asked is who looked the more presidential. We put a lot of emphasis on looks, but I often think that we need to be reminded that the mere appearance of leadership is not leadership, only a part of it.

Suppose that a Hollywood casting director wanted to hire someone who looked like a president to star in a movie and the only people from which he had to choose were the men who had been president. There is little doubt in my mind that he would select the handsome, silver-haired Warren G. Harding, who was probably the worst president we ever had.

Well, thank God, Hollywood isn't picking our presidents.

Yet.