THE PRESIDENCY
Filled with misgivings about the war in Viet Nam and the violence in U.S. cities, confused by simultaneous demands for retrenchment and vast new spending programs, threatened with higher taxes and still higher deficits, the American public is in a restive, unpredictable mood. Its distemper infects an already cantankerous Congress, heightening the impression of drift and disarray in the nation's capital. In times past, the one unifying force in such a period of malaise has been the presidency. Yet Lyndon Johnson seems strangely insulated from his countrymen's doubts and fears.
One...