Means of Ascent (11 page)

A letter from Wirtz at the time is more specific, and also casts light on Johnson’s later contentions that during these months his sole aim was to get into combat. On February 23, 1942, Johnson’s most trusted adviser, to whom he had been talking frequently on the telephone, wrote him: “
I can appreciate how you feel and how much you would like to have more power to get things done.” Wirtz said he had therefore
attempted—unsuccessfully—to see Roosevelt and
had
seen presidential aide Pa Watson, and had “suggested that you be made Admiral and given the same comparative job in the Navy that Knudsen has in the Army.”

William S. Knudsen had just been named a Lieutenant General and placed in charge of all production for the Army, giving him authority therefore over hundreds of factories producing billions of dollars’ worth of war materiel (and over other Generals working on production). Johnson was lobbying to be placed in a similar position over all Navy production, and over the Admirals responsible for it. But Knudsen was a famous production genius, an immigrant’s son
who had risen from the assembly line to the presidency of General Motors and had thereby been in administrative charge of one of the nation’s greatest industrial enterprises. The fact that Lyndon Johnson, who had never directed
any
industrial enterprise (unless one counts the Texas NYA, whose main function was to
provide campus jobs for high school and college students), wanted a comparable job shows how lavish was his appraisal of his own
abilities.

L
OBBY THOUGH HE MIGHT
at politics and promotion, however, his lobbying was yielding him nothing. Writing to the White House on March 7, he tendered assurances of his support for Allred, and then added a handwritten note, ostensibly to his friend, Roosevelt’s secretary G
race Tully, that he knew she would show to the President:

But the reply, from Roosevelt himself, contained a paragraph indicating that the President regarded the Allred nomination as all but settled; the only other line was, “I hope all goes well with you. My best wishes to you. As ever …”

And as March, the fourth month of war, drew to an end, time was running out for Lyndon Johnson. He had requested a transfer to
Pearl Harbor—although what he planned to do there, without any service in or training for the Navy, is unclear. (As it was evidently unclear to his superior; in a letter that month, in which Barker expressed continued exasperation over the communications problem—“
I have no address for
you”—Barker wrote, “I don’t see how we can find an excuse to send you to Hawaii.”) Also unclear is the degree of enthusiasm with which Johnson was pursuing this request; if he was asking the White House for help in getting into active service, there exists no evidence of it in Roosevelt’s papers, which contain requests from Johnson only for what Corcoran calls “something big” back in Washington. At least two of Johnson’s
older advisers—the two most aware of his true role in the war effort—now expressed, each in his own way, the feeling that Johnson was not trying hard enough to get into more active service. “
Get your ass out of this country at once to where there is danger, and then get back as soon as you can to real work,” the arrogant Charles Marsh wrote him. “If you can’t sell the Navy on ordering you out, you are not as good as I think
you are.… It [the work in Washington] may be in Man Power; it may be in running the congressional campaign; it may be in Congress.… But for God’s sake, get going and quit talking.” Alvin Wirtz’s advice was, as always, tendered in his calm, courteous manner, but while considerably more understated than Marsh’s, it was, in essence, the same advice. After assuring Johnson that he was still trying to get him a post in Washington
comparable to Knudsen’s, Wirtz added that “
I am doubtful whether it would be altogether advisable for you to be called into the White House before summer and before you have some more active service.”

The wisdom of Wirtz’s advice was becoming clearer every day. Johnson may have felt that an important enough Washington post—one he was, moreover, ordered to take by his Commander-in-Chief in the White House so that he would have no choice but to accept the assignment instead of service in a combat zone—would redeem his
campaign pledge to the people of Texas. But no such post had been offered—and what would the
voters’ reaction be if he left the Navy without ever having seen battle? The
Houston Post
(“if Mr. Johnson should be merely getting himself a safe, warm naval berth … the voters would be certain to react accordingly”) was a friendly paper; what would the
San Antonio Light
say, or Colonel Petsch, or the none-too-friendly
Dallas News
, should he return to
Congress without ever having been “in the trenches” or “on the deck of a battleship”—without, in fact, ever having been anywhere near a combat zone? Johnson’s secretaries were continually giving inquiring constituents the impression that while the Congressman was, so far as they knew, at last report, on the Pacific Coast, he was there only en route to a destination thousands of miles farther west—the war zone in the Pacific—and
indeed might be there already, for all they knew. But voters went on asking—out of solicitude—where the Congressman was. And on March 13, a minor state official and Pappy O’Daniel supporter,
O. P. Lockhart, apparently having learned Johnson’s true whereabouts, publicly suggested that if Johnson was going to spend the war on the West Coast, he might as well return to Washington, where at least he would be serving the district; Lockhart
called on him either to resign from Congress or to return to it. Rushing out a reply, Wirtz said that “Lyndon Johnson is
rendering patriotic and valuable service,” but did not specify what it was. Marsh’s managing editor,
Charles E. Green, chimed in, writing that “
government censorship does not permit me to say what Lyndon Johnson is doing.… But he’s doing a job for his
nation.…”

How long, however, could the reality of the situation be concealed? Even
O. J. Weber was forced to give his boss a warning. In a letter on March 16, Weber wrote: “The matter of your being out of Washington is
coming to a showdown and you’re going to get caught no matter which way you jump.… Even if the President calls you back there will be that element which will say, I told you he
wouldn’t get in any trenches with the boys. Since the movement to recall members on duty with the armed forces is gathering momentum every day don’t you think it is doubly important that you get on a boat and get to Pearl Harbor or some other place like that NOW and as quick as you can?” In another letter, Weber wrote: “We’re going to
have to have an answer [to voters’ inquiries]. Any
way you take it the
situation will be embarrassing.” Other aides, back in the district, were similarly warning Johnson that his constituents’ curiosity about his precise whereabouts and duties was rising, and Johnson’s reply to one of these aides,
James Blundell, contained a note of defensiveness: “
I am under orders from the Secretary of the Navy, and the Commander-in-Chief. I don’t give the orders but I do take them. Today I am
here, tomorrow I don’t know where I will be, but it will be where they think I can do the most.…”

Even more ominously, inquiries were becoming increasingly insistent from reporters on newspapers all over Texas, not out of suspicion but simply out of eagerness to do articles about him. Newspapers had reprinted a cryptic message that
Warren Magnuson had scribbled from “somewhere in the Pacific”: “
Getting it, but am afloat.” The Congressman’s carrier, part of a task force that had raided Wake
Island and the Solomons, had just finished dodging torpedoes from a Japanese plane while Japanese bombs rained down. Other congressmen were now in service. (Twenty-seven would eventually serve.) A third member of the
Naval Affairs Committee, Representative
Melvin Maas of Minnesota, was with the Marines in the South Pacific, where he would win, among other medals, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart. Another Texan, Representative
Eugene Worley, had become a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and was in the South Pacific. Representative
James Van Zandt of Pennsylvania, also a Lieutenant Commander, was in the North Atlantic, on a destroyer escorting convoys through U-boat-infested seas. Having made during his last campaign a promise similar to Johnson’s—to enlist in the event of war and serve in the front lines—Representative
Frank C. Osmers of New Jersey had redeemed that pledge on the day after Congress had declared war: he had enlisted as a buck private and requested assignment to a combat unit, with which he would later participate in the Okinawa and Philippine invasions. Articles were appearing about
these
congressmen. Still unwilling to abandon his political ambitions, Johnson, as the months passed, had been unable to decide whether to file for the Senate seat or for re-election to the
House; the filing deadline for both races was May 31, and no matter which election he selected, the announcement of his filing would focus attention on his war service, attention which, under the present circumstances, might prove disastrous for either candidacy. If he wasn’t going to get “something big” in Washington, he needed to be in a combat zone when he announced. And there might not be much time left, for Wirtz had let him know that the order recalling all
congressmen to the House, an order whose issuance would require him either to resign from Congress or to return without ever having seen combat, was under active consideration at the White House. In desperation, he headed back to Washington with Connally on April 13. In Washington,
he made no secret of the pragmatism with which he viewed the war, as is revealed by a diary entry made by a new White House aide,
Jonathan Daniels, after meeting
Johnson for the first time. Johnson, Daniels wrote,
“wants for the sake of political future to get into danger zone though realizes talents best suited for handling speakers and public relations.” After telling presidential secretary
Marvin McIntyre he would wait around Washington as long as necessary to meet with Roosevelt, Johnson was finally given an appointment on Sunday, April 26. Judging from later communications, during this meeting he again
sounded out Roosevelt about the Senate race—and the President again declined, this time firmly, to assist him. After a nudge from Forrestal, however, Roosevelt did assist him with his other problem. The President had decided to send a three-man survey team to report on the war effort in the Southwest Pacific. Two Lieutenant Colonels, one representing air forces, the other ground forces, from the War Department General Staff had already been selected. When Forrestal suggested
Johnson as the Navy’s representative on the survey team, Roosevelt agreed. On April 29 he was ordered to Australia.

On May 1, still unwilling to foreclose a senatorial race, Lyndon Johnson signed two applications, one filing him for that race, the other for reelection to his congressional seat, and told Connally, who would be remaining in Washington, to consult with Wirtz and make a final decision on which seat to file him for. Then, with
Mary Rather and
O. J. Weber acting as witnesses, he wrote out a will in longhand, leaving all his
possessions to his wife, sealed the will in an envelope, and left for San Francisco. (Another envelope was sealed at this time; it was a large manila envelope, on which had been written, “To be opened only by JBC or LBJ.” Inside is a leather carrying case containing four photographs, four of the pictures taken by
Arnold Genthe of “the most beautiful woman” he had ever seen. Where Johnson placed the envelope at this time is unknown; it
would later be kept in one of the locked filing cabinets in the office of his assistant
Walter Jenkins, in which Johnson’s most secret papers were stored.) On May 7, 1942, five months after Pearl Harbor, Lyndon Johnson boarded a huge PB2Y Coronado Flying Boat for the long flight to Honolulu—on his way across the Pacific to Palmyra, the Fiji Islands, New Caledonia, Australia and the war. He had brought with him at least one political
accoutrement—scores of copies of his formal portrait—and waiting for him in Nouméa, capital of New Caledonia, was a brief reminder of politics: a telegram from the White House. Roosevelt apparently was concerned that Johnson might try to circumvent his strictures against a Senate race, and the telegram warned him off. It was signed by presidential secretary McIntyre, who officially spoke only in the names of Rayburn and himself—but Johnson knew whom
McIntyre was actually speaking for.
MUCH TALK DRAFTING YOU SENATE RACE, SAM AND I
THINK YOU SHOULD WIRE SOMEONE TEXAS YOU WOULD NOT CONSIDER
. And when Johnson arrived in Melbourne, Australia, there was another reminder. Charles Marsh had been urging him to run for the Senate, but, Johnson knew, it was not Charles who had the brilliant political mind at Longlea. He had asked Alice for
her
advice, and for a report on the reaction to the suggestion that he be drafted for the race, and on May 31 he received it on
the other side of the world:
CHARLES BELIEVES YOU SHOULD FILE FOR SENATE. POLLS SHOW YOU LEADING. NO ONE ELSE SHARES HIS OPINION ENTHUSIASTICALLY. IF POSSIBLE, TELEPHONE. LOVE, ALICE MARSH
. Whether Lyndon telephoned Alice is not known, but he got through on the telephone to John Connally. Calls from the South Pacific were limited in duration. “It had to be very short,” Connally recalls. “He just asked, ‘What did you file me
for?’ ‘I filed you for reelection.’ ‘That’s fine.’ ”

Those were the last reminders of politics. Then Lyndon Johnson headed into a war zone.

I
N
M
ELBOURNE
, Lieutenant Commander Johnson and his fellow “observers,” Lieutenant Colonels Samuel Anderson and Francis R. Stevens, met General Douglas MacArthur, who paced back and forth in front of the maps on his wall as he gave the survey team from Washington an overview of the war in one of his famous
tours d’horizon
. The General’s staff had arranged an itinerary for them:
first they would inspect major industrial and training sites in the southeastern Australian countryside near Melbourne and then they would head more than a thousand miles north to the bases from which air raids were being flown against Japanese installations in the conquered portion of
New Guinea. Recognizing the importance of a Congressman close to the President, the politically astute MacArthur had detailed a blue-ribbon escort team, headed by a Brigadier
General, William F. Marquat, to accompany the observers.