Whatever next?
AMERICA MURRAY KEMPTON
New York—Mr Johnson's departure is the final evidence that the game of political commentary is up for the indefinite future. The explanation of an event by an observer upon whom it landed as a thundering surprise is no more than the counterfeit of sober reflection; to have failed so entirely to predict is to have forfeited the qualification to be taken seriously when you explain. Governor Romney and then Governor Rockefeller were unexpected to be sure, but mainly in their display of common sense; Mr Johnson's act is the pistol shot in the middle of a concert. Still, something must be said, however likely to be overtaken by some other event. In decency, it ought at least to be short.
There was always the suspicion that principle was more important to the President than his friends or enemies believed : that he was an anachronism really, trapped in the simple world of the middle 'forties, when it was us or Stalin, as it had been us or Hitler in the 'thirties, and not this uncontrollable time when we had lost control of the counter-revolution as the Soviets had lost control of the revolution. Because he had this simplicity of mind, you always thought that his war was quite a sacred thing to him; the speech which preceded his sudden announce- ment of withdrawal was peculiarly confusing because it seemed to suggest that his critics were right, that he was just a politician after all and that he was thinking only of the Wisconsin primary and would pretend to moderate his war just to make less certain another humiliation from Senator McCarthy. But, then at the end, there was the pistol shot; he had done the only thing he could to raise his South-East Asian policy, so horrid to so many of us, so sacred to him, above his own political position.
He has been noble; you were unexpectedly proud of your generation; there were people in it, scarred and savage though they were, who were ready to die for what they believed. It was impossible not to believe him sincere. His best chance of suppressing the insurrection in his party depended on his posture as a man who insisted against all objections that he would be President, and so be able to avenge himself for the next seven months on any enemy who dared to face him. Now he has announced himself a lame duck; it is safe to desert him. He must depend on the loyalty which comes from morality and not fear. He has graciously surrendered any prerogative to dictate; he must depend on his moral force.
It proved surprisingly strong in the first twenty-four hours. There was no immediate shift of the professionals to Senator Kennedy. Realism suggests that this respectful absten- tion from flight to the future cannot last long. The President's turning away from power has been remarkably handsome; still, he could hardly look forward to yielding it to a man who has given him as deep cause for distaste as Senator Kennedy has. Unfortunately for Mr Johnson's pride, he has no large alternative: Vice-President Humphrey has been hopelessly chewed up in the defence of Saigon; the Demo- crats have no Adlai Stevenson, aloof but en- chanting, as they had when Mr Truman retired in 1952; they are indeed an old party with very few politicians of unproven lack of talent. Senator McCarthy is, of course, an alternative in being, but it is difficult to imagine that a man as intense and active as the President would be drawn to one as mocking and detached as Senator McCarthy. After the surprises of the past week the commentators have been slow to draw conclusions from the outcome of the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday. Prior to the President's withdrawal it was being said that a high vote for McCarthy would be a measure of the President's unpopularity rather than of the Senator's popularity; and the implication of this would be that McCarthy's impressive show- ing was his own. But it could also be argued that Johnson's withdrawal deprived McCarthy of his challenge, just as the departure of Romney deprived Nixon of his challenge in New Hamp- shire. A fair assessment might be that the result in Wisconsin has done nothing to destroy the Senator's availability for the kindness of Presi- dent Johnson,. who would certainly prefer to deal kindly with almost anybody but Senator Kennedy.
Still, Senator Kennedy seems to have most of the advantage from the withdrawal of his one great enemy. He retains serious problems; it is by no means certain that he has the same appeal by himself as he had when running against Mr Johnson. He is a rather damaged bit of goods; he is not widely trusted; and even his more passionate adult supporters seem to have more respect for him as an instrument of history than they do as a person. He is caught, further- more, in the embarrassment of rhetoric a candi- date may expect when he has just spent two weeks in hyperbolic assault upon a President who has now raised himself above such things and now has the power to punish without the need to appease.
Senator Kennedy looked about as appetising on Monday as a man could who had just offered to 'work together in the interests of national unity' with a President he had accused a week before of calling up the darker impulses of American life: that is, not very. He seemed, for someone whose worst obstacle had walked away, curiously pinned and muted. Never before had anyone whose votaries have occasionally compared him to the late James Dean looked more like the early Sal Mineo. He approaches glory with less command on the imagination than he has ever had; still, it seems likely to approach him.
As for Mr Nixon, he was plainly thrown into one of those gaffes we have for quite a while been unable to depend on his making. 'This,' he said jokingly, 'seems to be the year of the drop- out'—first Romney, then Rockefeller, then Mr Johnson. The comparison was anything but dignified. You do not put the pain and trouble of a President of the United States in the same category that you do the vague disappointment of two governors who are vacating a place to which they had very little claim.
Mr Nixon can hardly be denied the nomina- tion. His problem since New Hampshire has been to strengthen himself as the Republican candidate. While Mr Johnson was in the field, his course was simple; he was running as a supporter of Mr Johnson's war which left him immune to Mr Johnson's former habit of charging its opponents with lack of civic spirit. He must now improvise, at least, until he knows just who his opponent will be. He improvises badly; most politicians do. Senator Kennedy's current embarrassment is one consequence of the habit of improvisation indulged too care- lessly.
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