my ability to afford such digs. I had to doubly assure him that the meal was “on old pal Joe.”
“What brings you back?” Scott asked.
“I’m at the White House,” I said. Stone blew an exasperating whistle. My tenure at the Advertiser had been boring, unsatisfactory and non-productive. While Hawaii is paradise, it has deadly pickings for a newsman who had moved there after covering the Kennedy Assassination in Dallas and who had performed such feats as being smuggled into a Mexican prison to gain an exclusive interview with an American who was sentenced to the firing squad as punishment in the death of three young Mexicans that he denied killing. Crime news in Honolulu, despite popular television shows, largely is limited to a raid on an illegal rooster fight staged by migrant Filipino farm workers. A triple fatality car wreck once had dominated page one with a main lead and some sidebars beyond ghastly pictures by some of the most talented photographers I ever saw hype an event. Beyond a daily ocean swim at Ala Moana beach, a nice event had been sipping brandy at Scott Stone’s mountainside house with a sliding door cracked to make whistling sounds so we could pretend the trade winds were wintry. Moving to the Honolulu Advertiser was one of many career mistakes I regret. But there in 1968, a few years later with my former colleague, I was using all my marbles.
“I need your help,” I appealed. Stone listened and nodded. Ending a war was worth any risk.
During the luncheon, Stone said he had “caught wind” about something big being staged. With his clearance evoked, I confirmed the July 18 summit meeting of President Thieu of South Vietnam and President Johnson. I told him that less inflammatory headlines would probably contribute to a better environment for the event. He acknowledged the rogue but not dishonest headline routinely had greeted President Johnson’s past visits to Honolulu. As miracles go, Stone convinced headline writers to ignore protesters. Probably unrelated and far more critical, an accord was reached between the two presidents. As for news reports, throughout the summit, the only untoward story was a claim that the government had installed a telephone system that could have served a small city. The source of the claim was nebulous but the facts probably were correct.
When presidents traveled during those pre-cellular phone days, communications logistics were crucial but expensive. The Army Signal Corps technicians and the U. S. Secret Service advance crew were incredible. Marty Underwood shined brightest. He housed Johnson at the seldom-used home of Henry J. Kaiser located beyond Waikiki Beach. With my mission accomplished with the Advertiser, I joined the teams at the on-loan house.
I jumped on the bed where President Johnson would sleep. It was king size and made special for the aging Mr. Kaiser. With my leap, I playfully claimed to check it for quality. But, when I stepped back onto a small bedside rug, a loud buzzer sounded. Secret service and signal corps experts came running to investigate. It seems that an alarm had been installed to warn attending nurses that Mr. Kaiser had awakened and was on his feet. The industrialist was amply protected. But the alarm was disarmed during President Johnson’s visit. My major feats were toned-down headlines and helping to assure a quiet nice night of sleep for LBJ.
The July summit produced a complex agreement between Thieu and Johnson designed, hopefully, to wind-down the Vietnam War. Four months later, I was at the LBJ Ranch helping to prepare a ceremony site where the President would award various medals to key astronauts and other space age notables. Late in the evening while the White House team lounged in a hanger where the next day ceremonies would be staged, a telephone rang. Larry Temple, a higher ranked White House staffer, took the call from a State Department voice:
“Thieu has abrogated the Honolulu Accords,” Temple relayed the news in dismay. “I’ve got to wake him up and tell him right now.” “Him” meant the commander in chief.
Temple ventured from the awards site into the ancient farm house and awoke the President. Temple said LBJ acknowledged the news with a slight curse then instantly was asleep again.
Pundit’s published reports shortly claimed that the wife of a former U. S. general had plotted Thieu’s betrayal in hopes of enhancing chances for the election of Richard M. Nixon over Hubert H. Humphrey. Nixon won the presidency a few days following abrogation of the Honolulu Accords of July, 1968.
President Johnson spent many days and weeks at his ranch following his withdrawal as a candidate. The Vietnam War grew increasingly unpopular and casualties mounted. Without fail, Johnson continued to sign condolence letters to next-of-kin of the fallen American service folks. Shoemaker, Krueser , even Will Sparks and other writers and I continued to write replies to mothers, wives and families who wrote back. Riots and protests grew across the countryside. In the tumult, LBJ responded to old friends. There were many letters of thanks that needed replies.
For instance, the Perdernales Electrical Cooperative that as a young Congressman Lyndon Johnson had helped to form to provide electricity for farmers and rural towns, had sent an engraved watch with a resolution of thanks signed by each of the directors. I was assigned the chore of drafting an individual reply to each of the men who showed friendship and gratitude. I sent the drafts to the Oval Office for the presidential signatures. They came back with a rewrite request. Before my work was acceptable and signed, I recall that I had drafted at least four versions of each letter. LBJ was tough on important missives.
A few years later, as press secretary to Oklahoma Governor David Hall, we flew with Arkansas Governor Dale Bumpers and his aide Archie Schaffer to the LBJ ranch in reply to an invitation from the retired president. The time was short, but conversations were rich. I identified myself as his least-most-important aide. Asking an aide to borrow his phone, I called my hospitalized wife in Oklahoma City. As we talked, LBJ strode into the ranch house’s recreation room and asked who was on the line.
“My wife,” I whispered.
“What’s her name?”
“Beverly,” I replied as he took the phone and said “hello Beverly.”
Who is this?” she asked.
“The president,” he said.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
“No, this is the president.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” said she at a moment when she could have offered sage.
“I’ll let you talk to Joe,” said the president.
Throughout the day, the president was humorous, relaxed and looked healthily tanned. He was pleased that Texas’ two neighboring states had elected Democratic governors despite a right-wing turn in public attitudes. Johnson lamented that he felt that the Democratic party had “lost the South” because of the extensive civil rights laws he had championed. Quickly, he added that the gain for justice and democracy exceeded the political tragedy. He also opined that while he was proud of Medicare for the elderly, that “Kiddie Care” would have a wiser investment. Noting the obvious, he grinned and noted that children can’t vote and old folks do.
In a relaxed mode, driving his Lincoln convertible and stopping only to squirt insecticide into red ant dens, we toured the ranch that abounded with exotic wildlife. I was reminded of the past when earlier I witnessed the robust, happy Lyndon Baines Johnson in top form.
It happened when U. S. Congressman Carl (Pappy) Perkins prepared to dedicate a new dam in his rural Kentucky district. President Johnson agreed to attend. Perkins was the staunchly Democratic chairman of the House committee on education and labor where many Great Society programs had started their journey toward becoming law of the land. LBJ remembered Perkins’s loyalty, hard work, dedicated liberalism and his legislative victories. Joining the dedication would be LBJ’s partial payback with pleasure.
It was late October, 1968, when Marty Underwood again rang my phone. I grabbed a suitcase and motored to Andrews Air Force Base to board a four-engine jet freighter that would land at the Huntington, West Virginia airport to unload the secret service, signal corps and political advance team. The president’s visit was
labeled secret. However, it was less than secret that seemed no four-engine jet had ever before landed on the airport’s limited runway. Sensed a calamity, we later assumed that someone advised local television reporters about the possible calamity. Without a clue about who was aboard the plane, newsmen who were standing by with cameras. The airport appeared to have been built atop a pair of hills with a valley filled in between. The pilot swooped down, then lifted up at the extreme end of the runway then barely screeched to a halt near the other end with a formidable drop just ahead. Advancemen scampered off the plane hoping to dodge the mysteriously present television cameras.
Underwood remained in Washington and delegated command of the exercise to another veteran advanceman, Howard Lee Cook, who convened the teams for a strategy briefing and assigned jobs. He revealed that Johnson would arrive on a small Air Force jet, greet any crowds at the airport, then fly by helicopter to the dam across the Ohio River into Kentucky. Cook would handle events at the Kentucky dam.
“Carter,” Cook said, “you handle the president’s arrival here at the airport.”
Secret service and signal corps knew their roles and dropped out of sight. I was virtually alone in Huntington, West