THE PRESIDENCY
Lyndon Johnson, it is well known, likes dancing parties. But in Washington these sweltering days, even the two-step is hot work. Thus, after a state dinner for visiting Costa Rican President Francisco Orlich and his wife Marita, President Johnson took his guests out onto the low-lying rooftop adjoining the east wing, only a few hundred feet from the street, where they danced under Japanese lanterns that swayed in the cooling breeze.
Jimmy Durante was there. So was Evangelist Billy Graham, Author John Dos Passes, Banker David Rockefeller, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Under Secretary of Commerce Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr., and onetime Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Luci Baines Johnson, two days before her 17th birthday, had 25 of her teen-age friends in tow.
Artificial grass carpeting and cabaret tables ringed the dance floor. To the distress of Secret Service men, tourists strolling along Pennsylvania Avenue had what amounted to ringside seats. The evergreens set out as a screen at the last minute were too skimpy to block the view. As it turned out, it was quite a show.
Humphrey and his partner got applause for their performance of the "Humphrey special" to Alexander's Ragtime Band. Luci and her friends gyrated through the twist and the frug; then the President himself came on with a stomp of uncertain origin that might have been a presidential version of a step teen-agers have dubbed the "bird." To the racy tune of the old Edith Piaf favorite Milord, Lyndon took Luci in a modified bear hug and whirled her around while flapping time to the music with his elbows.
That was about all the dancing Lyndon did. He had caught a cold in California, he said, and didn't want to spread it around.
In the mansion home of the chief of state, it somehow seemed a remarkable affair. But for Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson it all fit easily and naturally as a woodsman's felt crusher. In seven months in the White House they have put on at least 25 major wingdings, including eight state dinners—each with a minimum of preening, a maximum of fun and easy conviviality. After all, who else in the world could comfortably mix Jimmy Durante, John Dos Passes and David Rockefeller with a teen-age twist party?