The Presidency: Waiting for Lyndon

The typewriters keep up their nervous tattoo, the telephones go on ringing, the tides of paper flow in and out. Yet the White House—and indeed all of Washington—seems to function almost in a vacuum when the President is away. Despite the jet planes, private telephone lines and teletype circuits that constantly link the L.B.J. Ranch with the West Wing, Lyndon Johnson's absence from the capital affects the Administration like a power drain. Though his six weeks' stay on the L.B.J. Ranch 1,384 miles away has not been unusually long in comparison with...